The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 04: Come On In

[BelleCanzuto]

He sent her away anyway, to a famously strict girl's boarding school near Brighton, where she discovered learning, real learning, not the watered-down, pre-digested nonsense they were feeding her back home. She promptly ran away, Will had in the meantime very thoughtfully gone to Papua NG with MSF so I had to drive down from Oxford to her uncle's place in Arundel, snag her, and dump her in the trunk and take her back to school, leaving her chained to the school gates with a 'Do Not Feed The Animals' note pinned to her.

She did this another 9 times, they only let her stay because Will had received a gigantic education payout for her from the hospital in the lawsuit over the negligent deaths of her mother and sister, they weren't going to let all that money escape that easily, plus Will and I bribed them with stables and a Manége in the school so all the little girlies could keep their ponies with them, which cut down on all the other escape attempts, too.

She eventually gained an impressive raft of A-Levels with mostly A's once they took the shackles off and unzipped the Hannibal Lecter mask, universities fought over her, and she ended-up studying Economics and an Anthropology Honor at the London School of Economics, graduating with a First-Class degree.

Wow. That's incredible. You two sound like an amazing couple, and I just hope that your stepdaughter appreciates everything now.

Also - you'd mentioned Snowdonia previously: I spent a few years as a child in Wales (Haverfordwest), by virtue of being a US Navy brat. I've still got a lot of love for that country.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Inspiration always comes from somewhere, and often from other stories. You aren't obligated to recognize your inspiration. It's up to you.

It's different if you went beyond inspiration and borrowed unique characters and/or settings. You shouldn't do that without the original author's permission.

You can't place links in stories, and I think that includes end notes.

Thanks.
No, I didn't borrow anything. It was just an inspiration that I though deserved noting, because of the subject matter. The setting she used resonated with some previous experiences of mine.
Thanks for the info.
Belle

 

[BelleCanzuto]

@ ruby - MSF is Medecins san Frontieres, aka Doctors Without Borders.

 

[srosa]

@ ruby - MSF is Medecins san Frontieres, aka Doctors Without Borders.

Oh yes, she did mention that in an earlier post, and I didn't put two and 2 together. Thank you.

What is the significance of "Canzuto"?

 

[Rustyoznail]

Wow, thank you for all the interesting stories and information, everyone! I learned some new words today, like Strine.

Agree with the stories.

Strine is the unofficial Oz language used on forums to confuse Yanks, Poms, Dudley’s, and Springboks. Amongst others... Kiwis are immune.

Russ

 

[NotWise]

Agree with the stories.

Strine is the unofficial Oz language used on forums to confuse Yanks, Poms, Dudley’s, and Springboks. Amongst others... Kiwis are immune.

Russ

Who are these Poms that you need to confuse?

 

[srosa]

Agree with the stories.

Strine is the unofficial Oz language used on forums to confuse Yanks, Poms, Dudley’s, and Springboks. Amongst others... Kiwis are immune.

Russ

That sounds like rather official business for an unofficial language.

I had to look up Poms, and the internet didn't help me much with Dudley's and Springboks.

 

[Rustyoznail]

That sounds like rather official business for an unofficial language.

I had to look up Poms, and the internet didn't help me much with Dudley's and Springboks.

And that’s the point

Dudley = Dudley Do-right = Canadian Mountie, so...

Poms - ask HP. He’ll go on about them bloody convicts ruining the Queens English. And beer. And cricket.

Springbok - South African National rugby team. Many long years ago they were all Boers, but after Nelson Mandela not really a good idea.

I was on an old car forum, and a few of us Aussies had a great thread going where it looked like English but no one else had a clue what we were talking about.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

Wow, thank you for all the interesting stories and information, everyone! I learned some new words today, like Strine.

Taken, I'd never thought of Gameboys as a language learning device. And I'm shocked to hear you describe English as having fewer exceptions to rules! I hear most people complain about how many exceptions English has.

Lori, the story of how you met your husband is so sweet and romantic. Epic Court Poetry! That's like the pinnacle of romantic! Your storytelling is so fun to read. What is MSF? Sorry to hear about the negligent deaths.

Hi Ruby,

MSF is Médecins Sans Frontières, the forerunner of Doctors Without Borders; Will is an orthopedic surgeon, and he's worked in war and conflict zones across the world with MSF, Rwanda post-Genocide, Mogadishu, Cambodia and Laos, Eritrea, and Central African Republic. He spent a long time working with HALO (the British Landmine Injuries charity), UNICEF, War Child, and Save The Children. He's an unwilling expert on traumatic amputation injuries, which is why the British Army grabbed him on a civilian secondment to Iraq and AFG.

Actually, the poetry thing wasn't really romantic; Will's lecture wasn't exactly a scholarly ramble through dry poetry, rather it was a fascinating, golden couple hours of thoughts, wit, and clarity on the subject of erotic imagery and symbolism in High Medieval and Renaissance epic court poetry of the De Medici, Sforza, and Gonzaga courts. Also included were some of the dirtier bits of things like the Orlando Furioso, a bottom-shelf ripoff of Spenser's 'Faerie Queene' (which has its own moments, believe me), the unexpurgated originals of the Grail romances of Von Eschenbach and the like, and the bits that, for some very good reasons, got deleted and edited out of things like De Bergerac's 'Roxanne', Aphra Benn's 'Oroonoko', Ford's ''Tis Pity She's A Whore' and other Restoration 'comedies', and 'Gulliver's Travels'. Apparently our ancestors were as smutty, earthy, and inventively blue as we are today, they just got tamed-down by history, and what we see today as soppy, limp-wristed tales of chivalry and courtly love were nothing of the sort in their day.

Will is the classic after-dinner speaker, dry, witty, erudite, funny without being cruel, and knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects; he was brought up mostly by his aunties, his mother was indifferent to him, so he hardly ever interacted with her, and his aunt Debo was the biggest influence on him; she once told him that a man who couldn't play the piano, ride a horse, change a wet baby, clip a hedge, fix a broken window, cook a three course meal, and tell a good story was no good to anyone, so she made it her life's work to train him to do all those, and more.

He's no paragon of virtue, though; there have been days when I've wanted to drag him down to the duck pond and hold him under until he stopped struggling, or find a blunt instrument and blunt him with it; he's messy, indifferent to social niceties, wanders around my nice clean house in mechanic's overalls like a walking oil-slick, and he'd rather strip a carburettor or dew-claw the dogs than play nice with my friends (one really good friend once overheard him say to me 'please don't make me talk to her, when I look in her her eyes I can see light leaking in through her ears, she's a mimsey fucking airhead, make her go away, please.')

The amount of ass-kissing he had to go through to get out of that one was truly astronomical, he had to send us both to Paris AND pay for the shopping to get back in my good graces...

 

[QuillandInk]

And that’s the point
Springbok - South African National rugby team. Many long years ago they were all Boers, but after Nelson Mandela not really a good idea.

As a Boer, I can confirm this. Although I was born in the new South-Africa so I can only speak of current times with any certainty. These days the Springboks have a racial quota system like most companies in the country. There needs to be a certain amount of 'people of color' included.

I heard the government is aiming for 50% in 2019 and 4 out of 11 for the cricket team.

 

[ElectricBlue]

You can't place links in stories, and I think that includes end notes.

You can if it's a link to a Lit story and you ask Laurel nicely. My collaborative stories are posted in full on my account, and my co-writers have short intro versions in their account names, with a link at the end to the full story. More recently, I posted a short intro to one of my own story cycles in a different category, again with a link to the full story.

 

[Handley_Page]

That sounds like rather official business for an unofficial language.

I had to look up Poms, and the internet didn't help me much with Dudley's and Springboks.

I think 'Springboks' are from South Africa (it's the name given to the SA Rugby team).
Poms, ? I am one !
Dudley ? Dunno; ain't got a clue.

Any coffee left please?

 

[ThisNameIsntTakenYet]

Wow, thank you for all the interesting stories and information, everyone! I learned some new words today, like Strine.

Taken, I'd never thought of Gameboys as a language learning device. And I'm shocked to hear you describe English as having fewer exceptions to rules! I hear most people complain about how many exceptions English has.

Any games really, not just Gameboys. That was just what I had when I was a kid. RPGs or other story-driven games are of course more useful than say Tetris. Nowadays a lot of games have a decent amount of story and dialogue though, and often fully voiced too. People recommend reading books and watching series or movies in a foreign language to supplement your learning, but I'd say games are even more helpful because of their interactive nature. I've heard people who were learning Japanese played Animal Crossing in that language, a simple-ish game in which you're the mayor of a town filled with anthropomorphic animals. Because of the nature of the game it's a great way to learn the names of lots of objects, going from farming tools to animals to names of trees and fruit. It's not voiced though, which can cause the same butchering of pronunciations I struggled with at first. But for pure vocabulary it's an amazing game.

Thanks.
No, I didn't borrow anything. It was just an inspiration that I though deserved noting, because of the subject matter. The setting she used resonated with some previous experiences of mine.
Thanks for the info.
Belle

As mentioned, you don't have to give credit, but if you want to you can of course. I'd just add the story's name and author in your author's note at the end, or maybe even at the top of the story if you want. For the people interested, that should be easy enough to find, although you could try the link thing. Also, if the linking to a story does make Laurel mad, you could try a partial link, like this:

/s/story-name

I'd assume readers are smart enough to figure that out and it's not a direct link people can click so it'd probably be more easily accepted.

 

[MagicaPractica]

Good sinday morning!

Cheddar cheese onmelet, celery, OJ, coffee, and a small piece of almond sponge cake with strawberry jam here.

Showered and my brain figured out part of the plot for a short story I've promised to write for an anthology. I'm by no means a military history buff but it is set during the couple days before and during the invasion of Iwo Jima during WWII. Doing research.

The extensive nature of the tunnels and depth of the bunkers is fascinating and lends itself to the imagination.

 

[NotWise]

Good sinday morning!

Cheddar cheese onmelet, celery, OJ, coffee, and a small piece of almond sponge cake with strawberry jam here.

Showered and my brain figured out part of the plot for a short story I've promised to write for an anthology. I'm by no means a military history buff but it is set during the couple days before and during the invasion of Iwo Jima during WWII. Doing research.

The extensive nature of the tunnels and depth of the bunkers is fascinating and lends itself to the imagination.

Oatmeal here, and I'm on my second cup of coffee.

The AC came on about an hour after dawn, and it's been running off-and-on since. I need to get outside and get some work done before it gets too hot. With luck, we'll have some clouds this afternoon and maybe even a shower.

How deep did a tunnel need to be for the occupants to escape the flame throwers we cleared them with?

 

[oggbashan]

...

How deep did a tunnel need to be for the occupants to escape the flame throwers we cleared them with?

In some of the island fortifications in the Philippines, hundreds of gallons of gasoline were poured in and some Japanese were burnt to death six levels and over 100 feet down.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

What is the significance of "Canzuto"?

None. The whole name is an anagram of a sexy-ish phrase I like. I kept playing around with variations until I hit on something that sounded like it could be a real name. It was just happenstance that I wound up with a "first" name that's a synonym for "pretty". Well, happenstance, and I decided to stop after that and just play around with the left over letters.

And no, I'm not going to say what the phrase was originally (at least not yet )

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Actually, the poetry thing wasn't really romantic; Will's lecture wasn't exactly a scholarly ramble through dry poetry, rather it was a fascinating, golden couple hours of thoughts, wit, and clarity on the subject of erotic imagery and symbolism in High Medieval and Renaissance epic court poetry of the De Medici, Sforza, and Gonzaga courts. Also included were some of the dirtier bits of things like the Orlando Furioso, a bottom-shelf ripoff of Spenser's 'Faerie Queene' (which has its own moments, believe me), the unexpurgated originals of the Grail romances of Von Eschenbach and the like, and the bits that, for some very good reasons, got deleted and edited out of things like De Bergerac's 'Roxanne', Aphra Benn's 'Oroonoko', Ford's ''Tis Pity She's A Whore' and other Restoration 'comedies', and 'Gulliver's Travels'. Apparently our ancestors were as smutty, earthy, and inventively blue as we are today, they just got tamed-down by history, and what we see today as soppy, limp-wristed tales of chivalry and courtly love were nothing of the sort in their day.

See, that sounds incredibly romantic to me. Romantic in the best, dirtiest way. And now I'm going to have to find some of these works you've mentioned. I blame the Victorians for Bowlderizing so much interesting stuff.

 

[MagicaPractica]

In some of the island fortifications in the Philippines, hundreds of gallons of gasoline were poured in and some Japanese were burnt to death six levels and over 100 feet down.

*shudder*

I understand one of the bunkers on Iwo Jima was 75 to 80 feet deep. I can't even picture that. Was it layers, like stories of houses?

I really need a better understanding to write the story.

 

[NotWise]

*shudder*

I understand one of the bunkers on Iwo Jima was 75 to 80 feet deep. I can't even picture that. Was it layers, like stories of houses?

I really need a better understanding to write the story.

I googled "Iwo Jima bunker construction" and came up with videos shot inside the tunnels systems. There was a lot of disturbing footage.

 

[TxRad]

Stealing bandwidth on Sinday. What could be worse?

Finding out things are so much more interesting without me around.

Okay, I'll make a fresh pot of coffee and leave you all to it.

*POOF*

 

[MagicaPractica]

I googled "Iwo Jima bunker construction" and came up with videos shot inside the tunnels systems. There was a lot of disturbing footage.

I am finding some very interesting things. I really want to work on this story but have to complete pre publication work for the novel. It's a good problem to have.

Just put three pounds of taco meat in crock pot to simmer, some for salads tonight and some for freezer.

 

[srosa]

Lori, I feel the same way as Belle. Such a lecture is even more romantic! I hadn't known of any of those works. I looked up Faerie Queene on Wikipedia and was amused to see the contributors losing steam at the descriptions of Books V and VI. Amazing that Will is a surgeon and a professor and a blunt-instrument-magnet and all the other things all at once.

Taken, I'll keep that in mind if I ever want to learn Japanese.

Belle, that's a fun way to make a name.

Tx, never!

 

[Handley_Page]

.
.

Will is the classic after-dinner speaker, dry, witty, erudite, funny without being cruel, and knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects; he was brought up mostly by his aunties, his mother was indifferent to him, so he hardly ever interacted with her, and his aunt Debo was the biggest influence on him; she once told him that a man who couldn't play the piano, ride a horse, change a wet baby, clip a hedge, fix a broken window, cook a three course meal, and tell a good story was no good to anyone, so she made it her life's work to train him to do all those, and more.

He's no paragon of virtue, though; there have been days when I've wanted to drag him down to the duck pond and hold him under until he stopped struggling, or find a blunt instrument and blunt him with it; he's messy, indifferent to social niceties, wanders around my nice clean house in mechanic's overalls like a walking oil-slick, and he'd rather strip a carburettor or dew-claw the dogs than play nice with my friends (one really good friend once overheard him say to me 'please don't make me talk to her, when I look in her her eyes I can see light leaking in through her ears, she's a mimsey fucking airhead, make her go away, please.')

The amount of ass-kissing he had to go through to get out of that one was truly astronomical, he had to send us both to Paris AND pay for the shopping to get back in my good graces...

Oh Lori,
once again you show how its done !.
His Aunt Debo was quite right, IMO.
My son & his wife came to present their first-born son to proud Grandparents. Whilst Wife & DiL were discussing matters 'wifely' in the kitchen, my son was dithering about with all manner of baby-this and baby-that (eg., changing mats, and so on) he passed his son to me while he got the whole bloody confusion together so he/she could feed the wee lad.
So I've the baby on one arm and a warm milk bottle in the other hand, it seemed to me to be a simple question of applying A to B.
The look on my son's face when he saw his Dad feeding his son was one I do wish I'd had a camera for. . . .



Time for coffee. . .

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Baby Care 101: Keep one end dry and the other full. That’s it, 85% knocked right there.