Aeolienne

Hmm, sounds uncannily like a minor-key version of Baa Baa Black Sheep I'm currently listening to Language Lab, Burning Disaster. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNZtl53SDA8

I've bought a tub of coco de mer body butter. So far I've been unable to vouch for its supposedly aphrodisiac qualities.

Wagner, Prelude to Act III of Tristan und Isolde http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APeEUfUCDVk

Vivaldi, Gods, Emperors & Angels: Concertos for recorder, violin, bassoon and strings, performed by La Serenissima (dir. Adrian Chandler) feat. Pamela Thorby (recorder), Peter Whelan (bassoon) and Sara Deborah Struntz (violin)

Jummy?

GI [glycaemic index] measures the effect of your food on blood glucose levels. It’s a rank list index for foods based on how quickly your blood sugar levels will increase after ingestion. Link

Although you can microwave a sweet potato. Which has a lower GI than a conventional spud, don'tcha know...

And is "you must be too smart for the job market" a compliment? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me!

Does "How clever of you to remember such-and-such" count as a compliment? People have said that to me and I wonder why. Some episodes you remember, some you don't, but what has that got to do with cleverness?

I wouldn't be able to use my desktop computer anywhere else without changing the address my broadband/phone package is registered with. In which case my broadband provider might insist on a new phone line being installed at the said address, which they have insisted on doing each time I've moved house so far - not an ideal option if I'm staying with the relatives I mentioned above. I can't save up for anything if I don't have a regular income, and I can't see how I could have the latter without a job.

Charles Lloyd Quartet, Mirror

But my computer's not portable, no matter how many gizmos I carry around with me. That was the point I was making.

What's a mifi? Can you update a CV on "a phone internet"?

And now I'm about to leave. The internship was supposed to last until 10 February, but my landlady (with whom I've boarded since 15 January, the second landlady I've had since October) has thrown a spanner in the works by telling me she needs me out this weekend. Evidently my elderly cousin who found this landlady for me gave her inaccurate information about how long I needed to be in Cambridge for. Mind you, he'd also been telling her I was only 25! Seriously. As my employers seem to have sod-all for me to do at work, there doesn't seem much point in commuting from London for the final week. I had someone else giving me the same advice - "just move to Bristol now" - last week. She asked me if I knew anybody there with a spare room, and I said I have a cousin (of my own generation) living with her husband and 2 small kids north of the city centre, plus my brother's parents-in-law live out of town not far from the airport. Don't know if it would be reasonable to stay with either of them for an extended length of time, besides which my desktop computer remains in my parents' house in London; I'm not going to be very well-placed for jobhunting if I have to get by on just an hour a day's internet access at the public library. Unless Bristol happens to be well-provided with cheap 'n' cheerful cybercafés?

I certainly have: I've been on their waiting list three times, in 2001, May 2009 - June 2010 and 2011, but each time I ended up finding a job through my own efforts before getting anywhere near the front of the queue. During my second time on the waiting list, I was invited to a few employers' presentations (e.g. Goldman Sachs) in London, but all at such short notice I didn't attend, as I was living in Exeter at the time. My internship ends on 10 February - is it worth joining the Prospects waiting list for a fourth time?

Aren't convictions usually considered "spent" after five years?

Are there though? During the last few years I've tried to find voluntary work via the website do-it.org.uk or by applying in person at a local volunteering centre. I've done that in four different places: Exeter, Skipton, north London and Cambridge. Unfortunately on all occasions the organisations I expressed an interest in took what seemed like an overly long time to get back to me, and then some of them admitted they weren't actually looking for volunteers after all!

I've always identified strongly with Anne Shirley (as in Green Gables), although I don't think she is an Aspie. As I recall, she doesn't seem to have had problems making or keeping friends among her peers at school and college. There are some minor characters in the books who might be Aspies in that they are a bit aloof and standoffish at first acquaintance (e.g. Diana's Aunt Cornelia, Mr Harrison, Katherine Brooke in Windy Poplars, Leslie Moore in House of Dreams) - and Anne has this wonderful ability to win them over and make them feel valued and appreciated. So when I say I identified with Anne I mean not that she was just like me, only that I wanted to be like her - intelligent, attractive, thoughtful, serious-minded and well liked. Unfortunately real life isn't like that, at least not in the present era. Could you imagine today's teenage girls playing at acting out The Lady of Shallott? Anyone who suggested it would most likely be teased for being teacher's pet.

I've been none too impressed with Remploy when I've had dealings with them. They don't seem at all geared towards graduates.

That video looks like it was shot at Arsenal tube station!

What about Malvolio in Twelfth Night?

George in Vince and Joy by Lisa Jewell. He sounds like a carbon copy of a stereotypical Asperger's husband as described by an NT wife.

Chances are there are other people on this forum who play at least one musical instrument. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced similar problems to me in finding other musicians to play with. When people ask me if I'm musical, and I tell them I play the recorder, that invariably prompts two questions: "Which one do you play?" and "Do you play in a group?". The answer to the first is: descant, treble, tenor and sopranino. The second is less easy to answer, as it all depends on what you mean by a group. When I lived in Exeter between 2003 and 2010 I belonged to the Devon Society of Recorder Players (since then I haven't lived in any other part of the country long enough to warrant paying an annual subscription to another local SRP branch) . What that means in practice is that I went along to their monthly meetings whenever I could and sightread one part of a piece of music. After a while Devon SRP set up a separate "Exeter Recorder Orchestra". It was supposed to be distinct from the main SRP in that its stated aim was to practise (not just sightread) a selection of pieces with a view to performing them. But in the event we only gave concerts at a rate of about one or two per year, pretty poorly attended at that. And we only met once a month, so on the face of it it wasn't that different from Devon SRP. Most of the other members of Devon SRP and/or ERO played in smaller groups, some with other instrumentalists. At the very least this meant meeting up in other people's houses, but some of these smaller groups also gave performances. I once spoke to someone who'd played in a group in mediaeval costume who provided background music at Buckland Abbey. Unfortunately groups like these don't have auditions as such. It's more about playing with friends, or friends of friends. Indeed this person's advice to me was to make myself known, invite people back to my flat to play ensembles and maybe this just might lead to greater things. I objected, saying that my flat was far too small and untidy, and besides I only had a very limited collection of consort music. Another issue is that I hardly knew the names of anyone in the SRP and/or recorder orchestra; I was probably told any number of names but it was difficult to retain the information if I didn't see the other person for another month at least. There was a lady at the Quaker meeting I attended in Exeter who told me she'd had recorder lessons. When I once suggested that we should play together some time (emphasis on play, not perform) she was totally against the idea, saying that "You're far too good for me - you play in a group?" Eh?! This despite the fact she had never heard me play a note. There were people like that lady among my office colleagues (and indeed people I encounter today on internet dating forums), people who'd never bothered to attend my once-in-a-blue-moon concerts and yet who still thought I was really good. Maybe I should have taken it as a compliment and left it at that, but I was a tad tempted to grab them by the shoulders and say "If you think I'm so bl00dy marvellous why have you never come to hear me play?" Not all my colleagues in Exeter were like that. My closest colleagues (as in my team mates, not close in any social sense) knew nothing about my life as an amateur musician. Well I can only suppose they knew nothing. In all the time I worked with them I could have counted on the fingers of one hand the number of times they asked me how my weekend was.

William Dobbin in Vanity Fair, who is said to have been based on Thackeray himself. Possibly Amelia too.

Recorder