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BEAKY-IN-THE-BATH SHOCKER!  A NEIGHBOURHOOD REPUTATION IN RUINS!

Not the Usual Suspects

 While making a cup of coffee on Thursday morning, I absently gazed out of the kitchen window at the birds as they went about their business in the bijou garden of Château DeVice.  Reminded of Mistress Maddie's Usual Suspects series of blog posts, I thought this was a good opportunity to do one of my own, and set about taking some photos of the garden visitors.  While not quite as colourful as some of Maddie's visitors, the birds of Château DeVice are no less entertaining.

 Until a certain arrival spoiled everything...

House sparrows enjoying a bath

Escape with Evil Edna

  I've been thinking about how quickly this year has seemed to pass, and how close we are to the end of times 2017.  And that means that I need to be working on my end-of-year review, AKA: The Coven Awards!
  After all, we don't want another debacle like last year...

  Do we?

  Anyway, around this time last year, I was thinking along similar lines, and roped in Evil Edna to facilitate a televisual treat-filled blog post in preparation for the end-of-year review.  So, as I've got nothing else planned, why not rehash the whole thing?  Only this time with videos!

  Here's a little taster of what's to come:

Where the Moon Hides Her Tears (part 2)

Last night's moon
(as seen from the smallest room)

  After a day of drizzle and murk yesterday, this morning arrived clear and bright.  Although, it is not expected to last...

 As I hadn't been down to the beach in a while, and inspired by Ms Scarlet's recent blue skies, I thought I'd make the most of this break in the weather and capture the sun over the sea.

  I was not disappointed:

Sunrise over Sidestrand

Strictly Aljaž

  Presenting the naughtiest pro-dancer on Strictly Come Dancing and Strictly: It Takes Two, the always entertaining - and extremely handsome - Aljaž Skorjanec!

Aljaž dressed as the Milk Tray Man in episode 4

  As much as I love the Saturday main show, Strictly Come Dancing, Zoe Ball's weekday "variety show" Strictly: It Takes Two is my favourite.  Full of gossip, training videos, interviews, behind the scenes wonder, music, costumes, celebrities & pro-dancers, Ian Waite's Wand, choreography, Vicky Gill, comedy, sketches, and general nincompoopery, It Takes Two is only better when Aljaž Skorjanec is on.

It's A Faaaake! Not The Art Of Star Trek - Celebrate good times, come on!

 You were almost certainly expecting a post that referenced Hallowe'en, what with this being Hallowe'en and all, so I'm sorry for any disappointment this non-Hallowe'en post may cause. 

 Originally, I was going to post that Delilah nonsense for Hallowe'en, as I thought the 31st was on Saturday.  When I realised I'd been looking at my portable standing stones from the wrong angle and, therefore, got my dates all skew-wiff, I had to have a rethink.  It also didn't help that the Delilah Smythe Inc. goons sent to "persuade" me to "endorse" that cow's books kept getting under my feet and putting me off, resulting in me pressing 'publish' just to get some peace and quiet!
 So, on very short notice, and with assistance from the Host, instead of Hallowe'en, may I present a different ancient pagan festival: Rumarie.  Described as: "full of barely clothed Vulcan men and women, covered in slippery Rillan grease, chasing one another", Rumarie has not been observed since the 14th century.
 I'm sure some of you can't wait to participate in its come-back...

  Thanks for the intro, Witchface. 
  As you might have guessed, Rumarie comes from the Star Trek universe, and it was my selection for this month's Star Trek Art Challenge.  The theme for October was set by the winner of the September challenge (not me - I didn't have time to create a submission), below: 

Peldor joi, friends!

This month it's time for some celebrations. The theme is Star Trek holidays! Be it the Bajoran Gratitude Festival, the Klingon Day of Honor, the Vulcan Tal-Shanar or Earth's own First Contact Day – there's some celebrating to be done! Here's a handy list of all the made-up holidays from the Star Trek universe. Either pick one of those fictional festive events or invent one yourself to use as the basis for your work. No really, you can do anything you like with it.

Looking forward to what you cook up!

  I thought of Rumarie almost immediately as I wanted to use a little-known holiday, and also because I could revisit the Vulcan aesthetic I used last year for Winter Solstice.

First, I looked up "people chasing each other", selected some likely images and cut-out their silhouettes

(adding pointed ears - they're supposed to be Vulcans, after all)

"Up yours, Mrs Beeton!"

[This post is brought to you in grudging association with Delilah Smythe Inc.]

 To celebrate my 1000th post in just over twelve years of blogging (although I did have a couple of years off, sort of), and the publication of Delilah Smythe's latest book, her autobiography, TV DINNERS (to be published in certain markets under the title Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Boiling), may I present my five favourite Delilah Smythe books:

You cow, Delilah!  I'll get you for this! 

 TV Dinners is Delilah Smythe's seventh published autobiography, and gathers together all the old dross that wasn't fit for her first six bios.  It also includes an in depth look at Delilah's contributions to the television and film industry, in particular, her seminal work in Fatal Attraction (proudly used for the cover image), and her iconic (but highly poisonous) blue food for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

 (The post title "Up yours, Mrs Beeton!" comes from chapter twelve.  Specifically, Delilah's reaction to the news that her then current cook book, Catastrophic Cakefarts, had surpassed the sales of her arch rival's Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in the Christmas run-up of 11th-24th December 2016.) 

Further Adventures in Star Trek Scribbling

... Continued from Adventures in Star Trek Scribbling
 

  Look away now if you're averse to Star Trek nincompoopery.
 
  Yes, this is another post chock full of Trek-related art by myself and master of computer generated witchcraft, Scribble.
 (I mean, how can the models exist only within the confines of a computer?  They're real, physical constructs, aren't they?  They certainly look like it.)

  I did warn you.

The latest version of my alternate take on the officer ranks.  If you look closely, you can see that the gold bars are wider than on the previous models, and the ribbing is parallel to the long edges of the open areas in which they sit. 

Hasn't Scribble done a marvellous job?!

::

  Since the last post, in which we looked at the officer ranks, I've been thinking about the flag officer ranks - i.e. the various admirals - and some of the other uniform accoutrements and embellishments.

It appears I'm not the only one thinking about uniform bling.  Here we see James T. Kirk eyeing up Admiral Morrow's impressive embellishments!

[screenshot from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock via TrekCore]

::

BEAST is Back!

 Oh, the horror! 

 Yes, BEAST - he of the stinky duvet and unfortunately placed banana - is back.  To get over the upset, I invite you all to view these soothing beach photos from Sunday:

Conflict of Interests

"The fact is, this is about identifying what we do most of best,

and finding fewer ways of doing more of it less."

Anna Rampton, Director of Better, BBC

  I've spent all morning so far, pretty much all day yesterday, as well as Thursday (my day off), not doing what I'd planned to do except for when I sat down to do it but then didn't.

  Last night, I came to the realisation that I'm not doing the things I planned to do because there are more things we want to do than personalities and bodies available to do them. It also doesn't help that the things I planned to do aren't necessarily the things we want to do.

Adventures in Star Trek Scribbling

  Remember those Star Trek: Voyages That Never Were posts I used to occasionally churn out?  Well, if you don't, you can just click the link and take a look.  But, if you can't be bothered with all that clicking and reading and sighing about my Star Trek fetish, or just don't want to relive the horror again (or, maybe you do actually remember?), just skim over this post then nod and smile when you get to the end.
  Anyway, someone liked what I'd shown in those posts enough - well, they liked the alternate Original Series Movie rank insignia that I designed, rough sketches of which can be seen in the first ST: Voyages That Never Were post linked to up there, and then later attempts in the most recent ST: VTNW post a year and a half ago - to render them into 3D computer generated models (just look at the beautiful job they've done with my lieutenant commander insignia in the teaser image).

  Before we get to the redesigns, I'd better show you the originals, as designed by Robert Fletcher for the Star Trek original series movies:

Commanders Chekov and Uhura looking perturbed at the Star Trekkyness of this post...

[screenshot from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country via TrekCore.com]

  So, below are my alternate takes:

Earworms & Bookworms

  Mago's recent book post reminded me that I haven't published one since yesterday March!  Not that I've read that many books over the last three months - well, not many that you'd be interested in, probably...
  Anyway, before we get to the books, here's Strawberry Switchblade with "Since Yesterday" (because it was an earworm of mine when I first started constructing this post months ago):

  And, here are the books.  It's all a bit Star Trekky from 16 onwards, though...

11. The Lives of Dax (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), edited by Marco Palmieri (1999)
      I last read this back in 2010, it seems.

12. Martian Time-Slip, by Philip K. Dick (1964)

13. Dirty Beasts, by Roald Dahl & Rosemary Fawcett (1983)
      One of the books I had as a child found languishing in a box at Inexcuseable's house...

14. Hocus Pocus Diplodocus, by Tom Stanier (1980)
      Along with Dirty Beasts was this book - millions of years of evolution on Earth
      condensed into 32 pages of rhyming poems for kids (with some pretty amusing
      pictures, too).

15. Orlando, by Virginia Woolf Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke (1973)
      I quickly got bored of Orlando, so I moved on to 'Rama.

16. Shield of the Gods (Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations),
      by Christopher L. Bennett (2017)

17. Enigma Tales (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), by Una McCormack (2017)

18. Jaws, by Peter Benchley (1974)

19. Rise of the Federation: Patterns of Interference (Star Trek: Enterprise),
      by Christopher L. Bennett (2017)

20. Gamma: Original Sin (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), by David R. George III (2017)



  I'll leave you with the sublime "Pilots" by Goldfrapp - another earworm: