Smokey the Magnificent

Remember the snortlepig’s security knickers? Well, she seems to have made a new friend. It is a small bottle of peppermint essence. She fell in love with it at the supermarket when I gave it to her to hold in place of the cream, having spotted at the last second that she had taken the lid off and was about to upend it onto the supermarket floor. That same day I made mint chocolate chip ice cream (not my most successful flavour - that was three weeks ago and we still have some lurking in the freezer), and had to wrest the essence away from a squealing pig with entreaties and promises to give it back. When it was returned to her, sans half a teaspoon, she carried it away in sobbing triumph and promptly hid it under the sofa where my clawing fingers and dodgy housekeeping would never find it.

Then a few days ago, the snortlepig’s tiny aunt discovered it under said sofa while searching for the snortlepig’s small wooden animals. I put it back on the shelf and thought nothing of it until today, when the snortlepig started dancing and pointing and saying “DA!” at the pantry. I picked her up, wondering if she’d developed a sudden taste for dried chickpeas… but nope. She’s been carrying the peppermint essence around again for two solid hours. Freak.

Interestingly, although the peppermint smell cannot be detected outside the bottle and although she almost certainly does not associate the two, the mint chocolate chip ice cream was her favourite flavour. She also eats olives. She’s classier than me.

Incidentally, shikakai? Good stuff. Exceptionally. If this keeps up I might be able to wear my hair down occasionally, although of course I would then have to navigate the perils of giving the snortlepig the milks without sitting on it myself or having said pig twine it round her feet and pull. Madonna never had this problem (the Blessed Virgin I mean, not the singer, although I doubt she did either).

I’m drafting a dress! It is harder than it looks. And invisible zips are evil. I will update you when there is good news: until then, don’t ask.

In other news… hoom. Helpdesk Man ate the first ripe tomato of the summer yesterday and his eyes watered a little. I am babysitting my small sisters on Friday, and we will watch the last 29 minutes of Toy Story 2 and the entirety of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I have an article due in six days that isn’t even remotely written. We watched Season 5 of The Office and are on to Season 6. I’ve been listening, goodness knows why, to wizard rock and have so far sifted only two decent songs from the dross - I Believe in Nargles and Accio Love. Both of which are, quite honestly, rubbish: but I have a small life. Also, the pig’s wet nappy reeks strangely of tuna, which we have not eaten for months. I’d better go change it before worse things happen.

So Helpdesk Man and I are watching our way through the Harry Potter films. Hermione’s eyebrows notwithstanding, I’m enjoying them more than I expected. The Order of the Phoenix, which we watched last night, was positively arty in a few spots. That bit where Fred and George were consoling Nigel after he’d been using Dolores’ torture quill was actually moving. Also, I’d never before considered the awesomeness of the name Dolores Umbridge. She’s good with names, is JK Rowling.

Here’s the thing, though. The Triwizard Cup. Now, clearly it didn’t matter how the contestants got to the cup through the maze: they were being judged on results, not the wizarding prowess they showed during the process. (Which made their previous accrual of points kinda redundant, which was silly, but never mind.) So if Harry proved himself a one-note wonder, it wouldn’t affect his win. That being the case… why didn’t he go with “Accio Firebolt” again? He could have zoomed over the maze looking for the cup found it in seconds. Better yet… why not “Accio Triwizard Cup“? I can buy that the Cup was maybe enchanted to keep it in place, but the broomstick thing should have worked. Silly Harry.

Also, I like that they didn’t tart Hermione up too much. They de-bushified her hair movies before they were supposed to, and put her in civvies when she still should have been wearing robes: but she wasn’t in crop tops and miniskirts, and that is something. There are Standards left in the world. And hoodies, apparently.

Anyway.

Much to my surprise my one-hour-of-housework-a-day resolution has left me eager and sprightly, so my added challenge for this week is to tie up loose ends. Which sounds like killing my ex-bosses, but it isn’t. I’m fairly fond of most of my ex-bosses, with the exception of Simon the evil manager from Rialto who once spent five minutes castigating me for stealing a piece of company scrap paper to write an amoosing story on to pin up by the freezer. Oddly it wasn’t the story he objected to: it was the stealing. Of the scrap paper. Which never actually left the premises, so technically it would be what, vandalism? Graffiti? Anyway he ended up filching $400 from petty cash, so ha.

Most of said loose ends are fairly routine - I have to fix a few flagged articles at Suite, complete my shopping tote bags and mend a few clothes. Sadly, I also feel morally compelled to do my taxes. Yes, those taxes. The ones that should have been done last March, or whenever it is one traditionally does taxes. Helpdesk Man and I have made a date to stare them in the face tonight, and I am hoping to contract fulminating lupus before then in order to gracefully back out. It’s not the money - I’m pretty sure I owe a paltry amount, plus of course the late fee - it’s the psychology of the thing. Ever watch Black Books? Exactly.

The outcome: Peridjinndalmationwhatsername liked A New Hope enough to watch The Empire Strikes Back, but did not feel a pressing need to continue on to Return of the Jedi - excusable, because it was after midnight at that point and we are not as young as we once were. (With the exception of the snortlepig, who napped from Tatooine through to the Imperial Walkers, then perked up and spent all of Dagobah and Cloud City bopping around the living room, sitting on people’s knees and taking their empty candy bar wrappers to the bin. Then as soon as everybody left she marched into the bedroom and said “Bed” very firmly. This is the second time in a week that she’s asked to go to bed - maybe our lazy anti-routine attitude has finally reverse-psychologised her into a Ferber toddler. Maybe I should deny her vegetables in order to imbue them with alluring mystique.)

Furthermore:

• Perithingy was touchingly furious at Han for saying “I know” instead of “I love you, too”.
• The snortlepig cried “Piggy!” in great glee whenever Yoda appeared.
• I’d forgotten how young Harrison Ford was. He was, like, baby-faced. With hair on top. And nary an earring in sight.
• I’d also forgotten how dang loopy Yoda is when first discovered by Luke. Good golly. He must have been breathing in swamp-shroom pollen for twenty years straight. Couldn’t the makers of the *ahem* prequels have put in a subtle hint or two that Yoda’s race typically suffers from a peculiar mental degeneration in old age? And while on the subj, couldn’t they have worked around “I haven’t gone by the name Obi-Wan since oh, before you were born”?
• The sorbet Mark II turned out just fine.

So, Star Wars in a few hours. Luckily I got a head start on cooking last night - we watched Julia & Julia instead of Up as we’d planned, and I got inspired and started peeling onions at 9:45PM. The snortlepig helped. She is good at onions. So the kidney bean sauce is simmering away in the crockpot, the mince just requires seasoning and cooking, and I’ve made the mango sorbet and strawberry sorbet. Actually I’ve made the strawberry sorbet twice. The first time I made it I found it a bit on the sweetish side, and being confident and well-adjusted immediately started to worry that people would think less of me as a sugar-gobbling shill with no appreciation for the natural subtleties of fruit. (This is a Thing we me. I think it stems from growing up with sisters who ordered orange juice when I was wanting milkshakes. It is only in recent years that I have learned to man up and order a caramel milkshake and fries if I want them, even if my sister is ordering a vegan panini and spirulina at the shop next door. It’s so good to grow as a person, don’t you think? Anyway.) So I ruthlessly halved the sugar in the next batch, and it turned outr wimpy and pallid. So I melted it down again, added some more sugar and will shortly plonk it back in the machine to freeze anew. Never let it be said that I lack commitment to my Art.

On the subject of Julie & Julia, I finally got around to looking up Julia’s blog today, and was faintly if illogically surprised to see it looked just like the one in the movie (for the record, atrociously ugly). She comes across better in the blog than the movie - wittier and better at cooking and generally less cutesy and Meg Ryanish. And that’s not a slur on Amy Adams, who is awesome: it was a badly-written character, and Nora Ephron is culpable. For one thing, it sounded like most of her lines were taken from her blog (although I haven’t read enough of it yet to determine whether or not this is the case). Who says “Dreading, dreading, dreading” in real life? And another thing - which was also an issue in You’ve Got Mail, Nora, sorry - people don’t emote when they blog. With their faces, I mean. All those shots of Amy and Meg sitting in front of their laptops, eyebrowing and grimacing away to their voiceovers? Doesn’t happen. Look in an internet cafe sometime. Does the glassy, vacant-eyed, slightly grumpy stare emitted by the average inhabitant give you the slightest clue to what he is typing? No, it does not. It could be a sonnet, a thesis or a Dear John - you just don’t know, because we don’t feel the need to toss our little heads and smirk in synchrony with our thoughts.

Of course, I realise she was probably just trying to jazz up the inevitable eighteen scenes of Julie sitting in front of her laptop, and perhaps she thought the glassy-eyed stare would have gotten a bit much after awhile. But still. There’s “winsomely perky”, and then there’s “I want to chuck you in a flotation tank for eight straight days and we’ll see if your cute bob is still bouncing around your cheekbones then, wench”.

Yes, well.

I made some shorts for the pig today. At least, they were supposed to be shorts: I realised too late that snortlepigs have a crotch-to-knee measurement of about an inch, so they’re kind of three-quartersy.

I like ‘em. The button detail on the hems pleases me, and the ungathered panel on the front waistband (which was due to running out of fabric and having to piece the band) gives the thing a vaguely sailory, Donalf Duckish, Frenchish air which the pig carries off rather well. I can see this in beige and blue for a boy, can’t you?

Helpdesk Man artily arranged these standing up by themselves on the couch. Very Dr Seuss.

Button detail on hem of trousies

The snortlepig, struck by a momentary panic: "Is my squish still on?"

"Smile for the camera", I said, and she did this. She didn't get biddable photogenicity from my side of the family. Freak.

So, yup. I gotta go wash my hair. It’s got a sort of “Anglo-Saxon warrior after a week of battle” vibe, and one cannot watch Star Wars with hair like that. It would be disrespectful to Princess Leia.

PS: Helpdesk Man had the grace to admit that the “Sherlock Holmes” movie was a bit rubbish. We may make it to our fourth anniversary after all.

The snortlepig and I have broken a cup each this evening. I wonder what it portents. Thirst, probably.

You know how one occasionally buys a kitchen appliance and then never uses it? I have personally moved the majority of the food processor attachments from house to house three times, while being absolutely convinced I will never use them. Yet somehow, I can’t bring myself to break the set by chucking them out. What if Helpdesk Man loses his job, the snortlepig requires a brain transplant and I have to sell the food processor on TradeMe in order to afford a pair of nifty wristlets?

Beside the point. Where I was going with this is that our new ice cream maker (Helpdesk Man’s present to me and vice versa for Christmas) is not one of those items. We’ve had it for ten days and have already used it five times… seven by tomorrow. I love it dearly. Lemon sorbet, frozen Coke, vanilla ice cream, butterscotch maple ice cream and strawberry sorbet so far… and another strawberry sorbet and some mango sorbet are in the offing. For the record, sorbet is an excellent answer to the question of What to Feed One’s Vegan Sister, as well as What to Feed One’s Lactose-Intolerant Friend.

Speaking of lactose, the snortlepig has finally mastered the word “milks”. Until today, I had thought that this was a good thing - arguably more subtle than clawing at my chest, would you not think? Only today I was sitting on the piano stool at church, eagly alert for my cue to play “I Stand Amazed In the Presence”, when the snortlepig eluded the clutches of Helpdesk Man and ran up to me shouting “Milks!” Helpdesk Man had to carry her down the aisle as she shouted “Mummy! Milks! Mummy! Noooo!” in full-blown tragedy voice. The congregation was most entertained. I think I’ll pack a cosh in my handbag next week.

You will be happy to hear that so far, I have not broken any of my New Year’s Resolutions. On New Year’s Day, despite the fact that it was a public holiday, I put in my time and did my hour of housework. And didn’t I feel smug! I have also made some progress on the road rules, although it may come down to working the psychology of the multi-choice quiz rather than actually knowing the rules. The test is kind of passive-aggressive, so when it says things like “How fast can you drive if you see a school bus letting off wee cherry-cheeked urchins?” and the options are A) 20 km/h, B) 3o km/h, C) 40 km/h and D) 50 km/h, you can just tell it’s waiting for you to tick D and then scream at you “FIEND! BLACKGUARD! WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!” So you tick the holier-than-thou-est answer listed, A, and lo and behold, you are right. (Don’t even get me started on its smugly leading questions about the Effects of Alcohol.)

Tomorrow Betty Scandretti, as she is known to her adoring fans - Uncle Bizzy, as she is called by the snortlepig, and practically my only sister - is gracing our township with her presence. The plan is to watch Up while Helpdesk Man and Betty’s somewhat male nattily dressed counterpart go out to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. This is partly a Plan B occasioned by the inability of the snortlepig to behave in a movie and the inability of my mother to babysit said pig, on the grounds that her home became inundated with fleas while they were on holiday (!) and has to be fumigated. However, let it be noted that I am also not attending “Sherlock Holmes”* because, if the trailer is any indication, it is a travesty and a farce and should be boycotted by all right-thinking people. K? (Uncle Bizzy and I were going to see The Lovely Bones, but it is not to be. Up is smashing, though.)

Then the following night, several of my dearest friends (a phrase virtually synonymous with “only friends”, for the record, meaning “ones I can run into without having to say things like “Hey, didn’t you have a baby?” and “So are you and, um, still - no? Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Oh, well, OK then!” “) are coming over to eat nachos and watch Star Wars. As little as watching Star Wars needs a reason, we actually have one - my belly-dancing friend codenamed Perdita, it transpires, has never seen it. Can you imagine? And I met her working at an arthouse theatre, of all things. So this is very exciting. We have managed to work her into a state of cautious anticipation, and will do our best to avoid peering at her avidly and nudging her in the ribs to make sure she takes in all the good bits. From time to time I feel a moment of panic, thinking “What if she doesn’t like it? S– from the movies didn’t like it. What if she thinks it’s rubbish?”… but then my inner Yoda calms me, replying “S– is dead inside, and Harrison Ford will work his magic. You are trying too hard. Do, or do not. There is no try.”. And then I am calm anew.

Do you remember the first time you saw Star Wars, then? I will always associate it with Raro, a repellent powdered drink mix, because I first saw it on TV with the Raro logo popping up at vital moments. It wasn’t as earth-shattering an experience as the first time I saw The Fellowship of the Ring or even The Princess Bride, mostly because I initially watched half of The Empire Strikes Back late at night and didn’t have a clue what was going on, and had to get my friend’s little brother to fill me in weeks later on who was doing what. But it was still pretty awesome. And much more memorable than my first taste of Star Trek. (”Dark Page”, the one in TNG with Deanna’s dead sister. I mostly remember a lot of shots of people climbing down Jeffries tubes… not exactly the stuff of legend.)

Also, I am making the snortlepig a pair of shorts. And the mango sorbet is almost done, and tastes pleasing. And that is all.

*I usually italicise movie titles. This is not an inconsistency. Those are scare quotes, meant to indicate a withering sneer at the thought that THAT film is worthy to lick the boots of the great detective himself. K? K.

Right. After much deep thought I have finalised my list of New Year’s Resolutions. Here they do am.

• Get learner’s and restricted licence
• Spend one solid hour a day (Monday to Friday) doing housework and/or food preparation. Counting up the random minutes of domesticity during the day and hoping they came to an hour does not count.
• Have nine articles accepted for print
• Get singing group ready and worthy to busk by November
• Write one hour’s worth of fiction a week
• Learn to make ferments a la Traditional Foods
• Increase my Suite101 income from *ahem* dollars a month to *cough* dollars a month by December

Now I need to figure out some kind of spreadsheet dealio to put on the fridge and tick things offa, because we all know ticking things off is the essence of success. (Or crossing things out, if you swing that way.)

I also need to hunt up my old road codes. I’ve been taking this test several times a day with increasing levels of success, but I’m still a bit fuzzy about the colour-coding of cats’-eyes and tbe exact applications of the Give Way rule. Once I figure out the soonest time I can go in to take the test, I’ll make a plan of study. (Does anyone know? Do you have to book, or can you just show up?)

Last night we had a successful if sparsely attended braai in order to celebrate the New Year. We drank peach-flavoured grape juice (forbidden under Levitical law, but extremely nommy), watched Zombieland and got sat on by the snortlepig.

The party was OK… not spectacular, but not disastrous. We’ll get to that shortly. Firstly, there are two questions which have been bothering me, and both relate to bodily fluids. Perhaps you could help me out.

1. Blood is salty, no? I read somewhere that it has the same salinity as seawater, which was supposed to prove something meaningful and evolutionary; but whether that be the case or no, if one cuts a gash in one’s forearm and sucks the blood (accidentally, I mean; while making a flan, perhaps; not just for kicks), it tastes like salt. So. Wouldn’t drinking a whole pint of it, or however much vampires drink at one go, make you extremely dehydrated? I mean, vampire physiology is presumably constructed so as to cope with it; one does not envisage them carrying along a bottle of Evian. Well, Edward probably would. It’s the sort of marvy accoutrement one would expect a sparkly vampire to tote. But anyhoo. Blood. Salty. Yes. Interesting thought, no?

2. If one were alone in the wilderness, miles from civilisation, clean water, alcohol, antibiotics etc and a repellent crocodile bit off half your arm, would it a) improve your situation or b) otherwise to throom on your own stump? Urine is sterile and acidic, which makes me feel it would have antibacterial or cleansing properties of some sort. But mebbe not. And it would hurt. Helpdesk Man cautiously gave his opinion that it might be better to do so than not, but hesitated to make a definitive pronouncement. I like that in a man. It stops us from being sued. But what do you think, standard disclaimers aside? And if you thought it was the right thing to do, would you do it?

Anyway. Party. Yes. It was OK. Apart from the guest of honour’s family and my own family, there were only two guests present; fortunately, my family is capacious and the guest of honour had her parents visiting, so combined with our lack of chairs we managed to fill up the living room tolerably well. Much to my amazement, people bought Tupperware (!!); my small sister Ruth came over in the morning and baked practically all the food while I worked on the quilt, which I got finished (Is Better Than Perfect) more or less in time; and the snortlepig’s behaviour impressed the Tupperware lady so much (?!) she gave her a tiny pink container in a Handy Size. It seems the key to successful Tupperwaring is enthusiastically pointing out how any size of container, be it barely big enough to hold a crocus or large enough to host swim meets in, is Handy. I wonder if they conducted studies to find out the average household volume of leftover lasagna, or the typical quantity of Scroggin consumed by a family of four? At any rate we all agreed meekly that the various sizes were Handy indeed, and she got a bit cocky and asked me for an onion in order to demonstrate a device called, I kid you not, the Happy Chopper. It’s not a DC villain; it dices.

After this event my dear friends came over and we ate leftovers while watching American Graffti (kinda slow, Harrison Ford’s part smaller than expected) and The Lost Boys (all kinds of awesome; why do vampires have universally ridiculous hair? Is it a function of old age? “Ahh, I can’t keep up with the styles any more, I’m two hundred years old - here, love, pour a bottle of bleach on it and we’ll fling a bit of moose tallow in for texture.”).

Best yet, I discovered that my dates were all out of whack and my article isn’t actually due until Tuesday. Cue choruses of Mormon cherubs. Perhaps I will make it to Christmas after all.

Yesterday:

You know what? I will probably never learn to speak French. A semi-sobering thought. I’d like to speak French - more accurately I’d like to be the sort of person who learns French for kicks, which the evidence suggests I’m not - but meh. It has tenses. I’m  agin ‘em. I have a friend, though, who taught herself German simply by visiting a LOTR message board. But she’s Aspie - proper Aspie, not just vanity Aspie - and therefore cooler than me, as so many of my friends are. (Case in point: most of them can drive.)

You know what else? I remembered the other thing I had to do this week. It was volunteering at the toy library. Two weeks ago I didn’t turn up when I shoulda, and one week ago I did when I shouldn’ta. If I flake again this week they might start asking me nasty questions about the missing piece on the activity table the snortlepig borrowed a month ago. Must get up tomorrow morning.

I also have to get up in order to make a Shin of Beast, a task which now seems faintly glamorous as I just watched Julie & Julia with my mother. Meryl Strep is marvellous. You think “Oh yes, Meryl Streep, she’s marvellous”, and then you see her in another film and realise yup, she really is. I have that experience with Hamlet, also. And, upon occasion, soft-boiled eggs.

Today:

Got to the toy library on time, thank goodness, and spent a pleasant hour and a half chatting about childbirth and counting 150-piece toys into buckets. It’s a heady power trip, saying to cowering mothers “You do realise there’s a goblet and two trapdoors missing, don’t you…. maggot?”. Collected some used coffee grounds for compost, visited Helpdesk Man at work, then trundled home. Right. I now have the unenviable task of persuading a Tupperware lady to demonstrate this Saturday at a baby shower. And then I need to attack that Shin of Beast and do some long-overdue gardening. Pip pip.

Busy week this week. Whose crazy idea was it to put NaNoWriMo in November?

I gotta write approximately 17,000 words, including one 2000-word print article and a couple of catch-up haircare pieces for Suite.

I gotta plan and prepare for a baby shower this Saturday, which is also - and I stress this was not my idea - a Tupperware party. I guess after the first two babies a plain ol’ baby-themed baby shower seems passe. The odd thing is the mother doesn’t even want to buy Tupperware, just to replace some cracked stuff under its lifetime guarantee. I’ll probably end up buying a dozen lettuce crispers out of guilt for dragging the poor demonstrator over; and I can ill afford ‘em. Hmph.

I gotta finish the baby quilt before the baby shower. Maybe I could quilt it in vaguely Tupperware-shaped patterns, as a subtle nod to the occasion? No, bad thoughts.

I gotta do my taxes. Nothing new. I was supposed to do ‘em in, like, April. The bailiffs will probably seize this blog any day. (Wait a second! “Seize” violates the “I before E” rule! When did this happen? Who authorised it? Good golly. Procrastinate on your taxes for a mere seven months and the world goes topsy-turvy.)

I gotta send a bunch of leaflets off to various churches, a task that was foisted upon me by a woman upon whom it was also foisted, by another woman who came over with the vapours at the mere thought. I have in turn foisted the task on a corner of the kitchen floor, which doesn’t work as well as you might think. Better send them off before the event they are advertising takes place; that, or pitch them in a storm drain and feign oblivion.

Oh smeg. There was something else I gottaed. I cannot remember now. Ooh, we watched Twilight. I was curious. It was rubbish. Helpdesk Man didn’t help. (Me: That’s a nice pagoda. Helpdesk Man, darkly: I’m a pagoda. Etc.) Also I went to my dear friend Nat’s house today after church and we watched the new Star Trek movie. And I have learned how to make tabbouleh. It has bulghur in it, whoda thunk? Right. Gotta wash. Ten-four, minions.

1. What was your favourite moment in Star Wars? A New Hope, I mean, not the entire trilogy (or two trilogies, I could say, but if anyone’s favourite moment actually occurred in the new trilogy I’d have to ban you from the blog, and I’m not sure WordPress supports that function.)
2. Last night I started reading a library book, selected according to my new whatever-the-snortlepig-pulls-off-the-shelf method: Chocky, by John Wyndham. The synopsis on the back cover and Chapter 1 conspired to impart an ominous sense of dread - it’s about a boy communicating with an alien - and I spent a semi-sleepless night cosseting my heeby-jeebies. This afternoon under the light of the kindly sun I read the rest, only to discover it was positively benign. The alien ended up saying a poignant farewell to the boy and promising to give flashes of inspiration to future scientists in order to spur mankind on to achieving renewable energy sources. I mean, really.
3. I saw The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus the other night. Somewhat to my surprise, I liked it very much. Terry Gilliam is the accursed director of Tidelands, an arty and horrific film centred largely around human taxidermy which, with the possible exception of Salad Fingers*, is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. So I spent most of the film with my neuroses cocked, as it were, for the first signs of the grotesque. Fortunately it turned out to be more or less seemly. Still Gilliam, of course; bizarre; but by no means grotesque. And the visuals were stunning. Horrible phrase really, “stunning visuals”. To my mind it conjures up images of boringly greyish CGI armies, which wasn’t what Dr Parnassus was like at all. The wagon/caravan/theatre thing the crew travelled and performed in reminded me a little of Pan’s Labyrinth - the same texture and messiness - but more bohemian, theatrical and I can fondly imagine, just a tad steampunk.
4. The odd part, of course, was seeing Heath Ledger, especially as he made his first appearance being hanged. This affected me for a moment until I remembered that a) we watch dead actors onscreen all the time and b) I’m not really a fan of Heath Ledger. I mean, he’s good, certainly, but I don’t have a Thing about him. Not a faux-personal connection like I feel for my favourite actors - Cate Blanchett, for instance. So the film carried on. And just as I was thinking that Ledger’s performance had distinct shades of Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp came on to take his place. (For those not in the know, Heath Ledger died during filming and Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law came in to finish his scenes.) Props to the writers - if Heath Ledger hadn’t died, the film still would have worked with the substitutions. Fortunately he’d finished filming all his real-world scenes, so Gilliam picked a different actor for each time the character entered the fantasy world, and the changes were quite plausibly if vaguely explained away as having something to do with someone’s psyche.
5. Mention should also be made of Lily Cole, who played a convincingly not-quite-adult fifteen-year-old and had disturbing manga eyes. I liked her.
6. Mother has returned from London, with swole and beblistered feet from walking up on England’s golden shore. She brought back many gifties, including a teatowel for myself which advertises a particular brand of tea as a Cure for the Droops. I like it. And you know the wondrous thing? While in Oxford, quite by accident, she and my sister happened upon a steampunk exhibition!
7. The pig has taken to adding “y” to the ends of words. Like “eggy” or “moosey” or “horsey”. Until now, I had thought this was a tactic only adopted by older children.

* “Salad Fingers?”, I can hear you saying. “I haven’t heard of that. I wonder what it can be. I will naively Google it.” Gentle Reader: don’t. They will find you later skrivelling in a corner, attempting to pour Drano through a hole in your skull.