Brioche, Banana, Blueberry and Booze Bread and Butter Bake Again

Another iteration of this cheap, simple and tasty pudding which followed our family dinner of pork in cider with carrots and peas with pizza, salad and chips for the youngsters. We were ill last week so we had 2 quizzes to do and scored 9.5 on one and 13 on the other.
November was below averagely rainy and sunny and our second coldest November of all time.
A1 is rereading The Readymade Thief* by Augustus Rose. A2 is rereading Have Mercy on Us All by Fred Vargas.

Critter of the Day: Sturnus vulgaris

A starling amid the red leaves and mostly melted snow.
A1 is rereading the enormous and erudite Anathem by Neal Stephenson. It occurred to A1 on this reread that there is a possibility that Fraa Jad maps to Enoch Root, in some sense. But it appears I’m not the first to notice this (see ‘Speculation’ at bottom of page).
A2 is rereading A Climate of Fear by Fred Vargas.

Snow Fox Trot

Earliest snow on our records and a fox comes exploring in a winter wonderland with the colours of Hokusai’s Wave.
A2 is reading The Labyrinth House Murders* by Yukito Ayatsuji. Just like in Ink Ribbon Red* (qv) a birthday party host orders his guests to write a murder story involving themselves (it’s a 60th birthday, the guests are professional crime writers and there is a big prize at stake — but still). Where do they get their crazy ideas?

Full Moon, Corona, Jupiter

The full Moon surrounded by a colourful corona, with Jupiter on the right. There are Leonid meteors around now, but the glare makes them very hard to spot (sneer at the link’s “rare celestial spectacles” — they happen every year).
We had seasonally appropriate bangers and mash for dinner. And we’re looking forward to (allegedly) nine hours of heavy snow from midnight on Tuesday.
A1 is reading The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe. A2 is reading Polostan by Neal Stephenson.

Red/Squirrel

A critter surrounded by autumn colour.
We had chicken ham broccoli and apple crumble, plus omelettes for the veggies, for our family dinner and scored an unexpected 10 for our guesses in the GSQ.
A2 is reading Ink Ribbon Red* by Alex Pavesi which was unmitigated rubbish. Like anybody’s idea of 30th birthday party fun would be to order their guests to write stories about killing each other, and like any of them would bother.

Don’t the Moon Look Good, Mama, Shining through the Trees

Shine on Beaver Moon, last of four supermoons in a row.
A2 is reading The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe, a mystery story in three different genres set in the Truss days and featuring an incredibly hard-drinking old woman detective; an absolute delight. Thank you, thank you A1.

Bonfire Night

Happy birthday Guida!
A2 is rereading Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas. A1 is reading Polostan by Neal Stephenson, in which we learn much about the Wobblies, the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, balloons and cosmic rays, Magnitogorsk in the USSR, Bonnie and Clyde, the Communist Party of America, the sport of polo, the Bonus Army, quantum physics, Hoovervilles, and much else. Various real figures play pivotal roles: Niels Bohr, Generals (then Major) Patton and MacArthur and Lavrentiy Beria among others*. An unsurnamed “Dick” is also very important, who is clearly the womanising polymath genius Richard Feynman. This enthralling read is the first in a trilogy, but the small 300-page size (for a Stephenson book) and the lack of an ending — it just stops —  give credence to the rumour that it’s actually been finished but the publishers wanted it split into three parts. Well, more money for them…

* No sign of Enoch Root thus far, though.

Heaven and Hell

Thank you for the beer Gez. We had shepherd’s pie and Parkin with custard for our family meal and scored a mighty 11.5 on the GSQ.
A1 is reading Judgement Prey* by John Sandford. A2 is rereading This Night’s Foul Work by Fred Vargas. Can’t believe that any cat, let alone a fat indolent creature that has to be carried everywhere, would run 35 kilometres on the scent of a missing person.

Hallowali

It’s a festival of lights in one culture (but no fireworks this year) and an excess of pumpkins, ghosts, skeletons, witches and bats in another. Here’s next-door’s creepy display.
October was the second coldest October on record and has less rain and sun than average.
A2 is rereading Bryant & May: Strange Tide by Christopher Fowler and A1 is rereading Fowler’s Bryant & May: The Victoria Vanishes in an annoying American edition. If there’s one thing I can never imagine Arthur Bryant saying, it’s “cell phone” — but oddly, this is the only thing that’s been Americanised: there are still sweets, not candy, pavements rather than sidewalks, colours not colors and so on. Which made the ubiquitous changing of “mobile” or “phone” even more noticeable. And irritating. These books are quintessentially English — more specifically, Londonish (if there’s such a word), and Americanising them is just wrong. I don’t want US-written books to be Anglicised, so why do the opposite? US readers aren’t idiots.

Autumn Colour

A pretty tree. A2 spotted a bloke photographing it and stopped for a quick chat but instead got a lengthy lecture. Mansplainers eh?
We had chicken stew and apple crumble for our family dinner, did 2 old quizzes and scored 10.5 on one and 11.5 on the other.
A1 is rereading Bryant and May and the Invisible Code by Christopher Fowler. A2 is rereading Fundamental Disch by Thomas M Disch.