Thank you for all the nice Christmas wishes. I have completed all the answers to the Movie Quiz, if you want to check them and smite your foreheads. Do watch the clip from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes if you need cheering up. Lee and Mary G. came tops.
I have completely lost track of what day it is. We seemed to have three Sundays in a row, and then my visitors who were meant to come on Monday couldn't because of the weather, and they arrived on Tuesday instead.
We got cups of tea and mince pies and then settled down to opening the presents.
Silence fell.
I got a couple of nice knitting books, Erika Knight's Classic Knits and the first Mason-Dixon Knitting book, the Curious Knitter's Guide. I don't know why I didn't get this sooner; I won't wait so long to get the second one.
I also got a pink polka dot measuring tape, which pleases me inordinately.
And I had the piquant pleasure of seeing my pink bougainvillea blooming against a snowfall.
Knittingwise, I haven't as anticipated cast on for a piece of frothy lace, but have lumbered on with the white Pinwheel Blanket and Kaari. I have finished the Pinwheel, bar the blocking. It might be a while before I do a knitted-on border again (can you hear my clenched teeth?) but I'm happy with it.
And I have nearly finished the front of Kaari. I have made better progress this time, by the simple expedient of reading the pattern carefully. Feel free to borrow this handy tip.
I didn't carry on with the Jyri cowl. The pattern was coming out too small and I would rather do it with a heavier yarn. I came across some more white Jet on eBay do that might be good, if another baby doesn't present itself.
I was at the local John Lewis on Tuesday afternoon for the Clearance Sale and won the struggle with temptation, which wasn't easy. They had some very nice blue yarns. I did buy a pattern book, but that was the result of careful planning, not temptation.
It's Kim Hargreaves' Winter Blooms. Follow the link for better pictures than I could take. The Ravelry page is here.
I don't know why the girl on the cover is wearing a short-sleeved sweater and has a huge bunch of flowers on what is fairly clearly a late summer afternoon, in sharp contrast to the title, but there you go. It doesn't do to take pattern books too seriously and the important thing is that there are lots of lovely things in, some of which I could imagine wearing.
I don't seem to have pitched the Movie Quotes Quiz very well. I am obviously spending too much time watching the same obscure films over and over again. I will try to do better next year.
If you want photos of snow, have a look at the latest set from the Big Picture. Breathtaking.
And if you would like to see Scotland's polar bear, Mercedes, enjoying more of the same, look here. There's a movie clip here. If you want to hear the sound of a polar bear moving across deep snow, turn up the volume. It's not a sound you'll hear very often.
And here is your correspondent enjoying the snow, more than a few years ago.
I thought we would enjoy another Movie Quotes Quiz. They're all funny ones: the films may not be comedies, but the lines are drawn from their more light-hearted moments.
The pictures are not straightforward clues. They are of the actor who spoke the line, or the actor of whose character it was said. And none of the pics is from the relevant film. (CHANGED: see ADDED 3.) I'm sorry the font keeps changing. It's because I cut and pasted, and I've given up trying to put it right.
1. Now it isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but - well, there haven't been any quiet moments.
And the film I like so much I quoted it twice, The Right Stuff. Fred Ward as Gus Grissom, nearest the camera in the shot above.
5. Bite my ass, Krispy Kreme
Yes, Mary G., Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, to a colleague who criticizes her choice of clothes for the office
6. Do you two know each other? Yeah, she's my fiancée. Well, that would certainly explain the hostility.
Yes, Gretchen, it's Cousin Vinny, another of my longtime favourites. Marisa Tomei and Joe Pesci are wonderful together, and who knew Joe was a comic? Marisa is so beautiful and yet chews gum with distinction. Fred Gwynne played the Judge in this excerpt. It's full of great set pieces and if I catch the first five minutes, I'm hooked. More great lines from it here.
7. Every time I see that man’s hands, I’m so glad I don’t have to look at his feet.
This was said by one of the minor characters in White Mischief, of Gilbert Colville, the old Etonian who drove around Nairobi in an open-top Rolls Royce with a couple of Masai herdsmen. You can just see him in this tiny snap with the lovely Greta Scacchi who played Lady Diana Delves-Broughton. They subsequently married - Gilbert and Lady Diana, I mean, not John and Greta, although they might make a fun couple.
This is John Hurt again, as Quentin Crisp in an Englishman in New York, which is due to be shown on ITV next Monday, 28 December. It's a sequel to the divine Naked Civil Servant and covers Crisp's later years in, yes, New York. I am looking forward to it very much, while simultaneously worrying in case it doesn't match up to the first one.
8. Who’s the best pilot you ever saw? You’re lookin’ at him!
Yes, two from the same film.
Dennis Quaid as Gordon 'Gordo' Cooper in The Right Stuff, second from the left in the hinty photo. Fancy not knowing that.
9.I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm just "Crewman Number Six." I'm expendable. I'm the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is. I've gotta get outta here.
Punkin is right: this is from Galaxy Quest. As Lee guessed, said by the lovely Sam Rockwell in the character of Guy Fleegman.
11. I don’t know who I am, but I’m sure I have a lawyer.
Yes, Mary G., it's Goldie Hawn as Joanna Stayton in Overboard. I think Goldie's underrated, probably because she's so cute. She has great comic timing. Swing Shift is a satisfying film - it also has Christine Lahti, Ed Harris and Fred Ward as well as Mr Hawn, Kurt Russell, which is good enough for me.
No prizes, just fun and an excuse to spend hours on the Internet.
ADDED: Raveller, I don't think I was expecting you to sneak some help from Google. I don't see any harm in looking up the actors in the photos and checking their films, and I think I was imagining that as the answers started to appear you could look clips up on YouTube and so on. But of course, it's entirely up to you...
ADDED 2: I've moved the photos so that they are now better clues. They appear below the relevant quote.
ADDED 3: I've added some more picture clues, stonking ones this time, from the film in question and showing the actor(s) quoted or described.
ADDED 4: I've posted all the answers. Lee and Mary G. are top girls.
I learnt to knit at school and took it up again in my late twenties, and then again later, and it got squeezed out both times by changes in my life.
Now I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which leaves me sitting on the couch an awful lot. Some days I can’t knit anything too complicated because of what is politely called ‘brain fog’, other days I can knit lace. Some days I think I can do lace and then realize the next day that I couldn’t.
And I had the piquant pleasure of seeing my pink bougainvillea blooming against a snowfall.
It's Kim Hargreaves' Winter Blooms. Follow the link for better pictures than I could take. The Ravelry page is here.
