Made me smile.

From Accordion to Kelly

Baby names

Names! Always such fun to discover, discuss, and make lists of - even if you're not having a baby!

What kind of names do you like for boys? And for girls? What sort criteria would you consider when choosing a name? Here are some of the things I would take into consideration:

1. If my baby were to someday marry a royal (I am speaking hypothetically, of course), would his/her name be appropriate? Would it be a suitably regal, timeless name? Or would it be. . . an embarrassment? This is something that particularly struck me around the time of William and Catherine's wedding last year. Thank goodness Michael and Carole Middleton had the good sense to name their daughter Catherine, rather than (. . .)

2. Does the name have a positive meaning? An - er - meaningful meaning?

3. Is the name aesthetically pleasing? Does it have a pleasant sound when spoken aloud? A pleasant appearance when written down?

4. How common is the name? I would probably try to avoid names that are overwhelmingly popular. Unfortunately, there are a lot of names I really like that are currently in the Top 100 here in Australia! Australian parents actually have decent taste in names, at the moment - with a few notable exceptions, such as Jaxon *cringes*.

5. Last but not least, does the name have pleasant associations? This criterion can be particularly frustrating. Even if a name ticks all of the above boxes, it may still have negative associations in the mind of the public - or in my own mind. I used to like the name Bella/Isabella. . . before a certain series of books came along. I used to like Edward, too - before that same series of books came onto the scene. And I used to like Julia - before our current Prime Minister became Prime Minister.

So, what sort of names do you like? Quirky, or classic and elegant? Vintage, or contemporary? Share some of your favourites, if you want to!

My new favourite baby name site is the alarmingly addictive Nameberry. It has commentary on 1000s of names, and 100s of lists to browse through.

Ahem.

Be not alarmed, gentle readers. My devotion to Jane has not wavered. Yesterday's post was indeed, as many of you guessed, published in consequence of the date being April 1.

A Confession

I can no longer call myself a Janeite. Over the last few months or so, I have undergone a complete change of heart in regards to the work of Miss Austen. How can I put this. I just. . . don't like her books any more. They are overlong, shallow, tedious, and - dare I say it - BORING. I'm sorry if I offend anyone. I just can't understand how Jane Austen's books ever appealed to me in the first place.

Sorry, Jane.

Horrible Histories - Series 3!

I am becoming dangerously obsessed with the incredibly addictive, Monty-Pythonesque Horrible Histories. Here are a couple of several songs from the third series, which is currently airing in the UK.

Beautiful costume drama stills

Collecting period drama pictures from various corners of the web has become something of a hobby for me. The reason for this being that the pictures are just. So. Gorgeous! One could (in fact, one often does) spend hours drooling over the beautiful costumes, houses, landscapes, and people.

Many costume drama pictures are small works of art in themselves. As I am sure most of you are well aware, whenever I do a post on a period film, I use it as an excuse to share as many images as I can possibly cram into one post. This time I have no such excuse. This is simply a messy, mish-mash costume drama picspam, featuring a few of my favourites. The following are symphonies in light, colour, and texture! Elise, stop waxing poetical and get on with the pictures. . .

And just as a disclaimer, I do not whole-heartedly endorse every film in mentioned in this post. A couple of these films contain fast-forward-able scenes.


I love Drew Barrymore's red velvet dress. She really is a timeless beauty. Also, her character in this film is one of the few (that I know of) in period drama to have hair that is nearly as long as mine. :P Yay for lasses with long tresses! (Ever After 1998)


Bleakly beautiful. (Persuasion 2007)


Because it's so delightfully English! This could be a scene from any one of Georgette Heyer's novels. (Emma 1996)


Well, I had to include at least one pic of my favourite literary hero. ;-) Why does he does he have to be a fictional character? Why??! (Northanger Abbey 2007)


Very Monet-esque. By the way, if anyone could tell me where I can obtain high-res non-watermarked pics from this film I would be very grateful. (The Magic of Ordinary Days 2005)


An interior shot for a change. I love the warm, rich tones in this picture. (The Illusionist 2007)


Beautiful Liv Tyler. (Onegin 1999)


ANY still from this movie could easily have featured in this post. Italy. . . Helena Bonham Carter. . . Scumptious Edwardian costumes. I love how the personality of each character is conveyed in this picture. (A Room with a View 1985)


The dress and the field of wildflowers were made for each other (quite literally, no doubt). (Marie Antoinette 2006)


I loved Cecily's Pre-Raphaelite inspired daydream sequences. :-) (The Importance of Being Earnest 2002)


Once again, any picture from this movie could have been in this post. This one is very moody and gothic, and strongly remiscent of Andrew Wyeth's Christina's World. (Tess of the D'Urbervilles 2008)

One of my favourite movies. (Enchanted April 1992)

I suppose I'd better stop now. Part 2 will quite possibly be coming very soon. By the way, I hope you don't mind a post featuring mostly pictures, rather than writing. I've been suffering from a spot of writer's block lately.

Horrible Histories

Some of you may have read one or two or twenty of Terry Deary's Horrible Histories books as a kid. Maybe you still love to read them (you're not alone! ;-). But did you know that the BBC have produced a Horrible Histories TV series? It's a sketch show - each episode is comprised of a series of skits with the odd song or two. The show is brilliantly conceived and often insanely funny. In theory, it's a kids show - in reality, older viewers will probably get more out of this! Particularly if you're bit of a history nut like me. . . :-)

The only thing in this show that I don't love so much: the frequent bathroom jokes. . . And the deliberately silly, over-the-top blood and gore won't be to everyone's taste. But, potty humour aside. . . there are some seriously funny songs and sketches in this show. I couldn't resist sharing a few!

Check out these two YT channels for more: here and here.

Oh wait - just one more: this one is stupid but so funny. . . I've got a stomach-ache from laughing. . . 

Little Dorrit quotes

I thought I'd share a few wonderful quotes (well, I like them!) that I've found as I've been reading Little Dorrit. . .

~~~~~

[Flintwinch speaking to Mrs. Clennam] "The peculiarity of my temper is, ma'am, that I won't be swallowed up alive." (Chap. XV)

~~~~~

It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing on something. (Chap. XVI)

~~~~~

Mr Henry Gowan, inheriting from his father, the Commissioner, that very questionable help in life, a very small independence, had been difficult to settle; the rather, as public appointments chanced to be scarce, and his genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that exclusively agricultural character which applies itself to the cultivation of wild oats. (Chap. XVII)

Who says Dickens isn't funny? He had a wicked sense of humour.

~~~~~

[At Pet Meagles' and Henry Gowan's wedding] Then Lord Decimus, who was a wonder on his own Parliamentary pedestal, turned out to be the windiest creature here: proposing happiness to the bride and bridegroom in a series of platitudes that would have made the hair of any sincere disciple and believer stand on end; and trotting, with the complacency of an idiotic elephant, among howling labyrinths of sentences which he seemed to take for high roads, and never so much as wanted to get out of. (Chap. XXXIV)

I love Dickens! The complacency of an idiotic elephant. . . kind of like myself just after I get out of bed in the morning. :P

~All pictures from Sharona Lee

I write like. . .

I write like
Agatha Christie

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Cool! :-D Thanks, Autumn, for the link.

A bloat of hippopotami!

17th century engraving of a hippopotamus 

Some of my favourite collective names for birds and animals (as in, "a pack of dogs"), taken from my beloved Oxford English Dictionary. I shall put an asterisk besides those names that particularly made me snort with laughter - yes, I know snorting with laughter is terribly unladylike and so not something Jane would do, but sometimes I just can't help myself!

a shrewdness of apes
a bellowing of bullfinches* 
a sloth of bears
an army of caterpillars* 
a chattering of choughs
a bask of crocodiles
a murder of crows
a busyness of ferrets
a charm of finches
a skulk of foxes
a gaggle of geese* (this one is more familiar than some of the others, but isn't it so appropriate?) 
a siege of herons (huh?)
a bloat of hippopotami*
an exultation of larks
a tiding of magpies
a labour of moles
a parliament of owls (anyone remember that chapter in C.S. Lewis's The Silver Chair?)
a congregation of plovers
an unkindness of ravens
a crash of rhinoceros*
a rookery of rooks (duh)
a dopping of sheldrake* (what exactly are sheldrake, anyway?)
a pandemonium of parrots* (trust me, the name is fitting!! There are lots of parrots where I live.)
a fluther or smack of jellyfish
a dout or destruction of wild cats
a fall of woodcock
a descent of woodpeckers
a zeal of zebras

Now, am I the only one who is henceforth going to be on the lookout for any opportunity to use one of these terms in real life?

"These are a few of my favourite words!"

"When the dog bites! When the bees sting! When I'm feeling sad. . . I simply remember my favourite words, and then I don't feel. . . so bad!!"

I'll stop singing now, shall I?

A few wonderfully expressive words that I just love:

Revolting
Repulsive
Abhorrent
Insufferable
Insupportable
Extraordinary
Remarkable
Truly
Astonishing
Shocking
Disgusting
Intolerable
Incontrovertible
Ineffable
Gorgeous
Delicious
Scrumptious
Obnoxious

And of course,

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Which puts me in mind of two more lovely words,

Atrocious
Precocious

And in case you're wondering, I don't know what inspired me to do this post. I just felt like doing it.

I shall probably add more words to the list as I think of them.

What are some of your favourite words?

Friday Caption Contest

I am very pleased to announce that this week's winner is. . . Guitargirl, for her hilarious reference to a certain incident involving Kanye West and Taylor Swift. 

Congratulations, Guitargirl! And a big thank you to everyone who entered. Thanks, guys! 

"Yo Harriet. I'm really happy for you and I gonna let you finish, but Emma is one of the best painters of all time."

~~~~~

I am trying to reduce my usage of LOLs and smilies (they contribute to global warming!!), but now would seem an appropriate time to insert one or two well-deserved LOLs. . . 

LOL!!! LOL LOL LOL :-D 

~~~~~

Ahem. And now, time for this week's picture.

Hugh Laurie as poor Mr. Palmer, in Sense and Sensibility 1995.

Voting now open!

*Sighs*. . . I feel guilty. For the last week or so, I have posted precious little that isn't related to this caption contest-thingy. Then again, perhaps I should be grateful that I came up with the idea for this thing in the first place, because if I hadn't, there probably would have been even less new posts here lately. Oh well. . . 

But I really must say thank you to you all - the response to this caption contest has been wonderful, much bigger and more enthusiastic than I expected. :-)

This week's entries:

1. Mr. Elton: "You've made my nose too big!"

2. "It's lovely, really! Really. Er...what is it?"

3. "Um, and it's supposed to be what exactly?"

4. "Yo Harriet. I'm really happy for you and I gonna let you finish, but Emma is one of the best painters of all time."

5. Mr Elton: "Ew,What is THAT!" Harriet: "Oh, I'm just painting what I feel!"

6. Mr. Elton.: "You can never get his nose right!!!"

7. "And I suspect that to the left is ah, let me guess? A tree? Ah I see it now. You may Miss Smith improve by taking Miss Woodhouse's excellent tutorledge. Now let us go see what beauty Miss Woodhouse has captured on her easel!"

8. Mr. Elton: "That bush looks funny, the cows look funny. Why not paint a picture of me? After all I'm so much more paintalistic and I'm good for posing!" Harriet smith whispers: "Yeah right! He's like soooooooo not!"

9. Mr Elton: "You've got that wrong...and that...and that!" Harriet: "Would you like to take the paint brush?" Mutters "know-it-all"

10. "I'm afraid you colored outside the lines there..."

11. "You should have put a bigger nose on him!"

12. Mr Elton: "What is that"? Harriet: "A self portrait of course!" Mr Elton "Oh yes yes...See with that hair, I thought it was a poodle"!

13. "Oh dear! Uh... Are you SURE that's the color you want to use?!"

14. Harriet: "Oh dear, a blank canvas is so daunting!" Mr. E: "Just start - here!"

15. Mr Elton: "A portrait of Miss Woodhouse and...Mr Knightley?!!" Harriet: "I know; isn't he handsome?"

~~~~~

See the poll on my sidebar to vote. Remember, you can vote for more than one caption!

Gandalf goes to the World Cup

In light of the current controversy over the vuvuzelas being used by soccer/football fans over in South Africa, I thought this was just too funny. . . I simply had to share it with you all! :-)

Edit: and I just found this video, too. . .

Jane Austen's World Cup Team

Read the post here at Jane Austen Today. I LOL'd. . . 

Top 5 things you can do to irk a Janeite

1. Spell Austen with an I - Austin.

2. Refer to Jane Austen as a Victorian. ("Jane was NOT a Victorian, she died YEARS before Victoria was BORN!!")

The worst Austen adaptation ever?

3. Dismiss all of Austen's works after seeing one bad movie adaptation. ("Never, EVER, judge a book by it's movie!")

If you think this is all there is to Austen. . .

4. Dismiss all of Austen's novels on the basis that "nothing happens" in them. ("Nothing happens in them, yet everything that matters happens in them!")

5. Use the first line of Pride and Prejudice to open an article, news piece, or advertisement. It has long ceased to be funny or original.

~~~~~

Do you have any suggestions to add to the list?

Brontësaurus!

Have any of you seen this vid??

*Grins*

I just couldn't resist sharing this picture with you all. . . :-D

(Full-size pic here)

Little Dorrit outtakes

Just had to share this with you. . . 



Plus a rather lovely Little Dorrit fanvid here.

For admirers of L.M. Montgomery's heroines

Which L.M. Montgomery Heroine are You?

That was fun! Thanks, Autumn.

Do the quiz, then tell me which heroine you are!

There's also an L.M. Montgomery heroes quiz. I did this one, too, picking all the qualities I like (or think I like, LOL!) in guys. :P My result was Gilbert Blythe.