Public service announcement

Any Saffers abroad who plan to get a forrun passport as soon as they can, read this:
You need to apply to retain your SA citizenship, before you apply for your shiny new one.

As I read it, it's not a big deal, you are allowed to hold multiple passports (just not to use your foreign one within SA) - but if you don't get your retention thingy in time you could be stripped of SA citizenship.

They don't exactly make this info easy to find, which is why I'm putting it here (for benefit of my 2 readers). Thanks to Greg for letting me know. Spread the word.

Conversation over lunch

Me: "So you're moving in with your boyfriend soon, right? How you feeling about that?"

A: "Loving it. I'm going to get my washing done, the cooking done, someone else will keep the fridge stocked so I don't have to steal my flatmates' butter..."

B: "Does he know he's doing all this?"

A: "Well, he's the one who wanted to move in together."

B: "So he has to pay forever?"

A: "Look - he likes cleaning."

Me: "Nobody really likes cleaning."

B: "He just has a lower filth tolerance than you. Which, to be fair, is not hard."

A: "Hey..."

B [to me]: "A rat died in her flat."

[I have flashbacks to this book.]

B: "They didn't remove it. For days."

[The flashbacks continue.]

A: "We thought it might get better."

Lazy blog content alert

Pilfered (and slightly edited) from wytchfynder.

1. Ever punch someone in the face? Why?
No, only a feisty slap. Because he was ungentlemanly. He didn't seem bothered, so I slapped him again, harder. His girlfriend was not amused... but he made me an actual apology, with flowers, shortly thereafter. I was quite proud of this, at the time.

2. Where in your life are you? Just beginning, midway, none of the above?
I suspect I'll always feel I'm just beginning. But at the same time, I've already gotten further than I ever expected.

3. Are you single or taken? If taken, where?
Taken. Soon to be taken on honeymoon to Eeeetaleeee! (What? It's only five years late...)

4. Do you double-dip snacks/finger food?
*blush* Only among good friends. If they do it first. Or aren't looking.

5. Would you have any real-life ambition if you had perfect, lucid, coherently picaresque dreams every night?
*light dawns*
I do have astonishingly entertaining dreams.
And I am singularly lacking in ambition.

6. Could you spend a night in a morgue?
I don't see the problem. Dead people are just dead people. I've never understood why ghosts are supposed to be scary, either.

7. Have you ever wished someone real, physical harm or death?
Yes. But only for a minute.

8. Do you like Bush, the [US] president?
He has united the world (albeit only in mockery of him). Give the man a prize.

9. What happens when you die? How about when I die? And when a manatee dies?
I get buried in a cardboard box, after my body gets looted for whatever organs look useful. The manatee quietly sinks to the ocean floor and gets et. As for you, well, that depends on whatever arrangements you've made; don't ask me.

10. We escape. Where to, and how?
We rise up, rise up with fists, and fight our way to a land of free chocolate, and feather duvets. And no alarm clocks. At all. Ever.

11. Would you rather date a cop or a dealer in hard drugs?
Do I have to?
...
Okay, having given the matter some thought, I'll take a man in uniform.

12. What's the easiest way to distinguish Alanis Morisette from Ani di Franco?
Offer her a plate of poutine. If she recognises it as food, she's Canadian.

13. What is your fondest memory of a boy/girl/otherfriend?
It involves a mole, not on my face, being called a beauty spot. I bet he doesn't even remember, but it changed the way I saw myself.

14. If you could change anything about me, what would you change?
*sigh*
Wytchfynder dear, I would tone down that stirring habit just a tad. (Yes yes, I know, you don't stir. Whatever.)

15. It's a stay-at-home Saturday, you're all alone. What do you wear?
Winter: flannel PJs. Summer: not much.

16. Pee in the shower much?
EWWWWW! (I like that "much". Like it's a normal thing. You just keep telling yourself that, dear.)

17. Justice. Your thoughts?
If there were any justice in the world, I could eat all the chocolate I want, and there would be no alarm clocks. None.

18. If you only had one day to live, and my company, what would we do together?
This being Wytchfynder? Probably argue. (But, you know, in a friendly, stimulating and entirely constructive way.)

19. What is your favorite thing about puppies?
BELLIES! Fuzzy bellies! Oh yes. Mmmm. Puppy bellies.

I want a puppy.

20. Jessica Biel or Jessica Simpson - YOU CAN ONLY SAVE ONE! Who lives?
I do.

21. What's your favorite skin color?
Freckly, and anybody who loves me had better say the same, you hear? You hear? Freckles must reclaim the respect of the world!

22. If you could bring back anyone that has passed, who would it be?
Buffy. Buffy should totally come back on TV. And it's not like she doesn't have plenty of practice at the whole resurrection thing.

23. Good genes or suck-tacular? If the first, planning to propagate them?
Pretty good. I didn't get the genius bits, but I do seem to have avoided the lunacy, so that's okay. Most of the rest of my problems are of my own making. As for propagation — not that the world needs it, but I'm afraid it will probably happen, yes.

Be patronising! For a pound!

So somebody needs to raise quite a lot of Poondz quite quickly for the sake of The Theatah and, you know, we like The Theatah, we think it is Good.

We also think that this is the most cleverest and also silliest Poondzraising idea we have come across in a goodly while, and we are big fans of clever silliness here at the Scrivenings, oh yes we are.

So you buy a word. For a single Poond. Nifty eh? You get to choose the word and everything. Brilliant. Being a Patron of the Arts was never this much fun.

You can buy more than one if you like. I did. I bought "everything" and "sunlight" and "splish", because they are happy sounding words. And then I bought "brains". Because, well. Braaaainnssss.

No, you can't have it, it's mine. I got there first.

Only a little bit late.

Hardly at all, really.

Lean sideways on the wind

by Mervyn Peake

Lean sideways on the wind, and if it bears
Your weight, you are a daughter of the Dawn —
If not, pick up your carcass, dry your tears,
Brush down your dress — for that sweet elfin horn

You thought you heard was from no fairyland —
Rather it flooded through the kitchen floor,
From where your Uncle Eustace and his band
Of flautists turn my cellar, more and more

Into a place of hollow and decay:
That is my theory, darling, anyway.

Status report

Alive, yes, Anything interesting to tell you, no.

Oh, wait, not entirely true. Purlescence got picked up in the web listings of a Guardian crafts guide this week, so yay me! Also, um...

No, that's it. Talk among yourselves. Back later.