I grew up with Disney. I remember Walt! So “Disney + leader of a crime syndicate” is a little hard to get my head around.

Nope - according to the American Library Association’s bill of patron rights, only the parents can dictate what a child can or cannot read, and patrons’ records are private unless there is a subpoena (or if the Patriot Act is involved). Librarians are gently explaining this to Mr. Thaker, I am sure.

My immediate reaction to the picture of the proposed dorm room (via the Independent) is that students are liable to fall out of bed, and sex will take place almost exclusively on the floor.

The first live-action Hollywood movie I saw (with my parents) was The Vikings with Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. I was 6. Tony Curtis throws a falcon at Kirk Douglas, leaving him with one white eye for the rest of the movie. Later Tony Curtis throws some warlord into a pit of wolves and gets his arm cut off for it.…

I don’t know if it’s hit the stores yet, but “The Book of Magic”, Alice Hoffman’s sequel (not prequel) to Practical Magic, has just been published.

And no pinkface unless you’re RuPaul.

They haven’t yet explained how one bullet killed a person and injured another.

I find that instead of walking off the job it is so much easier to stay on the job and just not do any work.

My mother taught me that when making gravy, in which you are mixing a small amount of solids (flour) into liquid, it works better to use a figure 8 pattern. This also works when the proportions are reversed, as with a can of soup dumped into a pot for heating.

I’m not usually a fan of horror movies, and I would argue that this is one, but I loved this film. I saw it last Friday (after which I looked askance at my cat who likes to sleep in bed with me), then returned on Tuesday when for the first time in recorded history I was the only person in the theatre. It definitely…

Just last year Alice Hoffman published a prequel, “Magic Lessons”, about that very ancestress. It is excellent. Be sure to read the other prequel, “The Rules of Magic”, which is about the aunts when they were young, and I am eagerly awaiting “The Book of Magic” which centers on Sally’s now grown daughters. Many of Hoff…

So it’s safe for pregnant men too?

Especially if she starts to turn surly.

The husband of a Dutch friend of mine was in Parliament for a while and got to meet their queen at a reception. They were served sherry but Her Majesty confided that she would have preferred a gin. I can understand it. All that smiling and looking at things and smiling. You might as well be a little buzzed.

Hey, if you’re on a shit tonne of meds you might as well have a drink.

I’ve never watched this show, but when I came across the season premiere last night I was immediately taken in by the sheer poetry of the lines. Virtually every sentence uttered meant something else.

This is a song for which there is probably no recording anywhere, but I heard this at a concert of feminist music, opening for Chris Williamson or Margie Adam in the early Eighties. It was sung by a chorus from Boston.

I might re-try “Britannia”, as it’s an interest of mine, bt it was awfuly gory. (Oh, too bad.) I want to try Germany’s “Barbarians” - the Romans speak Latin and the Germanic tribespeople apparently speak a sort of Proto-Germanic.

In my house the original formica-topped kitchen cabinet base stood in the dining room just outside the kitchen door. It was an extension of the kitchen, holding the Cusinart, casserole dishes, medicinal herbs, seldom-used utensils. Eventually I got tired of it and moved everything inside to other places, but I do keep…

I certainly understand the divide between watching at home and watching in a theatre. But it all depends on what kind of film you see. The movies I went to see at the local art-house this year could just as well have been watched at home; The Green Knight deserves to be watched on a big screen. I saw Avatar on a 12"…