From the Old Lady of Threadneedle street – the UK has a brand new fiver. It’s still blue 😉 Thoughtful Man got one last night whilst out working, and showed it to me this morning. It’s shiny and can survive a battering…
*What? …/innocent face*
Mrs Reign one side, smoker Winnie on t’other… see-through window…
*Saturn 5… I guess Big Ben does look a bit like a rocket, Clicky…*
Yes, I know today’s Friday, but I was kinda busy yesterday, Dear Reader. And this post is about yesterday, so if this presents a problem, you know what to Doo…
Thoughtful Man grunted and sat down on his chair. He looked decidedly hot and bothered. It could have just been the heat but I didn’t want to take the chance, so sent Clicky off for a nap.
“I can’t stand this weather. Look at me, I’m dripping,” he said wiping his brow.
“You do look sweaty,” I agreed whilst sitting in my own pool of salty water. “Well, what have we gotta do today?”
Thoughtful Man huffed and sighed. “It’s parents evening at the school tonight. Your sister will be here at five… we’ll need to tidy up, hoover.”
Juju had agreed to sit dog Princess Poppy for us whilst we traipsed up to the school to hear what Year 11 has in store for the boys.
“Fuck! That means I’ll have iron them a couple of extra shirts,” I said, slumping back into my huge, leather Library chair and instantly regretting it. “And the bedding upstairs also needs changing…”
A look of resignation and then something else crossed his face. Thoughtful Man stood up and, holding out his hand, said “We should just go upstairs and do it.”
Ah, so that’s what that other look was.
*Alright, Clicky. Calm down…*
“Juju, can I ask you to do me a favour?” I asked my sister later whilst wrangling with the ironing board. Everything pressed to perfection, all we had to do now was to get going.
She sat in the Library, playing with Clicky. Poppy stood in front of her, ball in mouth, wagging her tail expectantly. “What’s that, babycheeks,” Juju answered absentmindedly. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or the dog but carried on regardless.
“When we’re out tonight, could you read something for me? It’s a friend’s novel that I’ve been editing. It’s his first.”
“No, that’s Legs. This is Hugo Stone, I think he lives in Wolverhampton or around that area,” I said, squishing her along the seat so I could get to my keyboard. “It’s called ‘Cultish’ and it’s about ‘Satan, the apocalypse and lollipops’.”
Poppy dropped the sodden ball at her feet; Juju picked it up and threw it.”Sounds interesting. Okay,” she said over the sound of skittering nails.
“Be honest. Read as much as you want and then tell me what you think of it when we get back.”
Thoughtful Man appeared with two miserable but smartly dressed 15 year olds in tow. “Get off the fucking computer now. Come on, we’ll be late,” he barked.
Poppy didn’t know whether to follow the sea of retreating legs or get Juju to throw the ball again. The decision was out of her paws, however; we said our goodbyes and set off.
*I think I call you ‘a pain in the arse’, Clicky… No wonder Dumey doesn’t put up a fight over you… Can I get on with it now?*
Two hours later and we were nearly home. The auditorium had been packed, sweltering and noisy, the boys’ grades from the exams at the end of year 10, disappointing, and the only teacher available to meet with us was the ICT teacher, Mr Hall, and he’d only started there that week. He did have a certain glow but it was more likely due to the excessive heat than any honeymoon period. The only thing of interest was a poster I’d seen outside the school library.
“I told you it would be a waste of time,” Kit Kat informed us from the back of the taxi via the intercom.
“No. Now I know you need to pull your finger out,” Thoughtful Man replied. His eyes shifted in the rear view mirror, fixing on Loopy. “And you.”
“I explained about maths…” Loops started to explain again, before catching his father’s reflected squint and deciding to shut up.
I tried to change the subject. Sort of. “What was that teacher going on about with PPE?” I asked out loud. “The Polish one, Head of Maths, she kept saying it but I didn’t catch what it meant. It doesn’t involve hard hats, then?” I quipped, lightening the mood, I hoped.
“No,” Thoughtful Man said as he turned the Bonnermobile into our drive and pulled up. “Stands for Pre Public Examination, I think. It’s their Mocks.”
We unbuckled and got out of the van. Juju appeared on our doorstep, Poppy in arms.
“That book you asked me to read,” she said as Poppy strained to give us a welcome home lick. “Filth. Utter filth,” she said sternly.
Time stopped. All five of us stood motionless, the only things moving were my eyeballs and our demented dog’s struggles. When I spoke, my lips, cheeks and tongue felt like they were moving in slow motion.”Didn’t you like it?”
“I didn’t say that,” Juju replied, breaking into a smile. “It’s really good but it’s utter filth.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and took Poppy from her. “Oh good. So you liked it?”
Juju waited for Thoughtful Man and boys to move out of earshot. “Yeah,” she confided sotto voce. “And I was wondering if I could, er, take it home with me so I can, you know, finish it?”
*******
*What? …/cocks head… Oh… /furrows brow… My Merovee comment in moderation? I’d forgotten about that, Clicky… 137 ART…*
“Here,” Thoughtful Man called, “Big Chief Double Chopper has had a makeover. Take a look.”
I peered at his computer screen. Big Chief Double Chopper had been mum’s garden Indian that lived in her front room. After she died, her husband Stan took the opportunity to have him re-homed. I don’t blame him; what man wants to face a double chopper on the way to the kitchen first thing in the morning.
“Aw, it’s nice that they’ve sent an update,” I said.
“A bit garish,” Thoughtful Man opined. “Stan’s got a point, though, are red Indians supposed to be black?”
I smiled, recalling a couple of commentsRedFrank has posted for me on ‘Scatty Sunday’. “Fuck knows,” I replied, giving him my considered opinion.
*Clicky, random…/sigh*
“Hmm,” I said to myself, sitting down and lighting a rollie.
Thoughtful Man swiveled round in his chair. “What?” he said launching a squint in my direction. We’re far too close, I couldn’t dodge it.
“No, it’s just I was reading about the Lost River yesterday. It was weird how I got there. Actually, I was thinking of writing a post about it…” I trailed off.
“Lost River? What do you mean how you got there?” he probed gently. That was unexpected, he normally doesn’t like to talk to me about my posts but then again he’s a bit of an American history buff – he’d probably heard of it on one of his TV programmes.
*Is that Chief or Chef’s office..? /shakes head… Nevermind…*
“Okay then,” I hesitated and marshaled my thoughts. “The journey begins in a pub.”
Thoughtful Man continued looking at me without speaking, so I showed him the tweet that had started it. The source. “Lions and tigers and beers…” I trailed off again. I do a lot of that.
“It was the description of the smoking area,” I continued. Clicky escorted him to the page.
Cleckheaton doesn’t have an Ossett pub, but the Rose & Crown is a newbie with a similar atmosphere. It was more boisterous than my photos imply; lots of £2.60 pints were being carried out to a characterful smoking area. Worryingly the £2.60 pint of choice seemed to be Ellands 6.5% Porter. Their homebrew pale was enough for me (NBSS 3.5).
*Yes, Clicky, any mentions of Roobee and his attention does start to wane… and he’s not a beer drinker, though he is fond of a Lion bar… Anyway, I told him the last line of the article and said to remember it…*
‘Plenty of Bass livery, very little Bass.’
“Is there any chance you might skip to the end?” Thoughtful Man asked politely.
“No. So I looked up the year 1872, of Deep Ruby, and there was this Indian battle of Lost River in the November,” I replied.
‘The Battle of Lost River in November 1872 was the first battle in the Mo Doc War in the northwestern United States. The skirmish, which was fought near the Lost River along the California-Oregon border, was the result of an attempt by the U.S. 1st Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army to force a band of the Modoctribe to relocate back to the Klamath Reservation, which they had left in objection of its conditions.
In the subsequent war, Captain Jack of the Modoc and 53 warriors held off more than 1000 U.S. soldiers for 7 months in the area of the present-day Lava Beds National Monument. Part of this was named Captain Jack’s Stronghold in his honor.’
Thoughtful Man sighed heavily and started to swivel round. “Is that it?”
*A little bit, Clicky… /holds out thumb and index finger…*
“Not quite,” I answered. “You forgot the last line.”
Thoughtful Man wrinkled his brow. “Plenty of bass livery, very little bass?”
“Yes,” I smiled. “They’re all in Lost River.”
A sluggish stream, Lost River offers fishing opportunities for bass, up to 7 lb (3.2 kg), brown bullhead, crappie, yellow perch, and Sacramento perch. Trout are uncommon in this river.
*Oh Clicky, get off! …/splutter… Really!*
*******
*What? Erm… /wipes lips and frowns… Dunno, Clicky, possibly this guy..? Shall we have a Song?*
“What are you laughing at?” Thoughtful Man asked rather grouchily. He was getting dressed for work and I was sat at my computer. He tends to be grouchy when he’s getting ready for work. Or if I’m at the computer.
“Oh, it’s the positioning of these two tweets…” I started to answer but caught his Why-are-you-having-fun-when-I-have-to-work-on-Sunday?-look and stopped. “Nothing.”
*/squint… Clicky, please… /hold finger to lips… I’m talking…*
“I won’t just be sitting here whilst you’re out,” I said, continuing to scroll down my twitter feed. “I have tidying and washing up to do, and the boys’ uniforms to iron.”
“PE tomorrow,” he reminded me, buckling his belt.
“And it’s PE tomorrow, so there’s more of it.”
Thoughtful Man harumphed and went to look for his shoes. Another tweet caught my eye.
For my money, the best story in the press today: Alan Johnson on how Tony Blair almost set up a Ministry of Penis. pic.twitter.com/82H9Mb674c
“What’ll you feed them tonight?” Thoughtful Man had returned, fully dressed and shod, wearing his stop-laughing-when-I-have-to-work-on-Sunday-look.
I composed myself and addressed him seriously. “Whatever’s out there. We’ve got plenty of food in the fridge. What about you?”
I caught it, the fleeting guilty look. “Where will you be eating tonight?”
“Chinese,” Thoughtful Man replied without meeting my eyes. “It’s Al’s last night tonight and we thought we take him for a Chinese.”
“Aw, that’s nice,” I said wearing my why-are-you-moaning-about-going-to-work-when-you’re-having-Chinese?-look. I scooped up Poppy, who was sniffing round our feet. “This is in addition to his leaving drinks you went to on Thursday?”
Thoughtful Man started toward the front door and we followed, me rubbing and patting his shoulders, whilst our demented dachshund wriggled and writhed under my arm.
“Yeah, well Tony couldn’t make it on Thursday so they’re going to dinner tonight,” he explained, opening the door.
“And you’re going along to say goodbye again. You’re a good friend,” I assured him and pecked him on the cheek. Poppy gave him a perfunctory lick. She too could be grouchy when Thoughtful Man was off to work. “Okay then, I see you later. Have fun.”
I closed the door after him, set the dog down and made for the kitchen – washing up first; I had an idea for a post and wanted to get all my chores over with first. I heard the key turn in the lock behind me.
“Here’s twenty quid,” Thoughtful Man said, poking his head round the door and pulling a note from his workbag. “Get something for you and boys from Hong Kong Kitchen later. Better go now. Bye.”
I waved him off. Such a Thoughtful Man!
*******
*Okay Clicky, what? What’s with The Shining interruptions?*
*But they’re all over the place, they’re not making sense… /works out order…*
The universe began13.7 billion years ago, and the CMB dates back to about 400,000 years after the Big Bang. That’s because in the early stages of the universe, when it was just one-hundred-millionth the size it is today, its temperature was extreme: 273 million degrees above absolute zero, according to NASA.
Any atoms present at that time were quickly broken apart into small particles (protons and electrons). The radiation from the CMB in photons (particles representing quantums of light, or other radiation) was scattered off the electrons. “Thus, photons wandered through the early universe, just as optical light wanders through a dense fog,” NASA wrote.
About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was cool enough that hydrogen could form. Because the CMB photons are barely affected by hitting hydrogen, the photons travel in straight lines. Cosmologists refer to a “surface of last scattering” when the CMB photons last hit matter; after that, the universe was too big. So when we map the CMB, we are looking back in time to 380,000 years after the Big Bang, just after the universe was opaque to radiation.
*You know, Scatman Crothers also voiced ‘Hong Kong Phooey’, Clicky and starred in Scooby Doo. You could have mentioned that*
*Too late, Clicky, I beat you too it. So, come on… Song and Scat?*
There was a train crash this morning in O Porriño, Spain this morning…
*Clicky, no! Porriño isn’t Spanglish for ‘it’s pissing down’… besides, it sounds much more Italian… But that’s not the point. It’s uncalled for, Clicky, people died…*
*Well, Red Frank did thank everyone for who’d triggered an idea in him and he’s into Franglish… perhaps you were already in that frame of mind, BlueFrank‘s been musing on language…*
*That’s a bike with stabilizers, not a trike… Hang on, is that woman smoking near her child? Fuck! The Shining could be banned… /nibbles nail… They won’t be happy until they’ve turned us all into not-sees…*
*Ah… Apollo rose… Rose, the colour of O Porriño’s famous granite…*
*Whoa! Way to derail a train of thought, Clicky… Or did you? /breathes in deeply… I’m gonna have to go and have a think about this. Give Dear Reader a Song… /wanders off muttering…*
As we saw in Part 4.1, the Redrum bathroom scene in The Shining Forwards/\Backwards, one of the corresponding scenes is that of Wendy talking to the doctor in the Boulder apartment. The other is…
*Funnily enough, Clicky, the Old English word for ‘cannibal‘ was ‘selfæta’… sounds like ‘self eater’… /waits… reminds me of another Stephen King story…*
*******
murder (n.) c. 1300, murdre, from Old English morðor (plural morþras) “secret killing of a person, unlawful killing,” also “mortal sin, crime; punishment, torment, misery,” from Proto-Germanic *murthra- (source also of Goth maurþr, and, from a variant form of the same root, Old Saxon morth, Old Frisian morth, Old Norse morð, Middle Dutch moort, Dutch moord, German Mord “murder”), from PIE *mrtro-, from root *mer- “to die” (see mortal (adj.)). The spelling with -d- probably reflects influence of Anglo-French murdre, from Old French mordre, from Medieval Latin murdrum, from the Germanic root.
Viking custom, typical of Germanic, distinguished morð (Old Norse) “secret slaughter,” from vig (Old Norse) “slaying.” The former involved concealment, or slaying a man by night or when asleep, and was a heinous crime. The latter was not a disgrace, if the killer acknowledged his deed, but he was subject to vengeance or demand for compensation.
Mordre wol out that se we day by day. [Chaucer, “Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” c. 1386]
Weakened sense of “very unpleasant situation” is from 1878.
shambles (n.) early 15c., “meat or fish market,” from schamil “table, stall for vending” (c. 1300), from Old English scamol, scomul “stool, footstool” (also figurative); “bench, table for vending,” an early Proto-Germanic borrowing (Old Saxon skamel “stool,” Middle Dutch schamel, Old High German scamel, Germanschemel, Danish skammel “footstool”) from Latin scamillus “low stool, a little bench,” ultimately a diminutive of scamnum “stool, bench,” from PIE root*skabh- “to prop up, support.” In English, sense evolved from “place where meat is sold” to “slaughterhouse” (1540s), then figuratively “place of butchery” (1590s), and generally “confusion, mess” (1901, usually in plural).
We start with Jack chopping at wood, whilst calling to Wendy that ‘he’s home’…
Danny escapes the bathroom by sliding and lands on Jack’s shoulder… Embodying his parents, Danny looks on…
Jack approaches the Redrum Bathroom…
He stands outside the bathroom and listens at the door before knocking…
The bathroom window is too small, Wendy can’t get out. She calls to Danny…
*Ap-parently, Clicky, human flesh tastes a bit like pork…*
Jack demands entry…
Inside the Redrum bathroom, Wendy plucks the knife from the sync and waits by the door…
As Jack hams and chops…
Would he, wooden he..? Wendy screams…
*******
So, Dear Reader, I hope you’ve enjoyed this visit to The Shining Forwards/\Backwards’ bathrooms…
Hmm… Dear Reader, I’ve been stumped as to how to start Part 4…
*Er, thanks for that critique, Clicky. As always your assistance has been… /pause… helpful …/squit… I mean /squint…*
*******
I first read Stephen King’s ‘The Shining’ in about 1986. I loved it, reading it several times. So when I finally got round to watching Stanley Kubrick’s film version in January 1991 (I remember because Thoughtful Man was away on his stag night), I was really disappointed.
In fact, it put me off Stanley Kubrick films altogether. They just didn’t interest me at all. That was until I stumbled across a blog that turned me on to them. Of course, it had to be about ‘The Shining’. Intrigued by what the blogger thought he’d observed, I had to watch the movie again. And again… and again, and again…
*******
Redrum Bathroom
The fourth bathroom to appear in the film is the ‘Redrum’ one. Danny names the door…
This scene is well into the second half of the film (the descent), so appears early on in the Forwards/\Backwards version. In fact, it coincides with the doctor…
and the dislocated shoulder injury that kept him out of school…
Meanwhile, Dick is driving toward the hotel, his car windscreen blades furiously wipe away the snow, as Wendy glosses over what happened between Jack and Danny that night…
But we get to see just how bad Jack’s mood could be…
The doctor listens impassively before Wendy gives her a silver lining to the incident…
*******
*Well, Clicky, there’s just one more post in The Shining Bathroom Series to go… and you know what that one’s about, doncha?*
The scene with Jack and Grady in the bathroom is nearly 6 minutes long…
*Way too many gifs, Clicky… I’m gonna have to be cannier about how how I present this…*
*… and careful with the hugging, sweetie*
*******
Okay, let’s familiarize ourselves with the scene in question.
Unlike, the bathroom scenes in Part 1 and Part 2, the Ballroom Bathroom scene (on the descent from the ‘shining’ peak, at the centre of the Forwards/\Backwards version) has dialogue in both directions. And it spans not one but three scenes on the ascent. But which ones?
To start with, when Jack and Grady first enter the bathroom…
… the corresponding scene is of Jack talking to Danny in the bedroom.
Jack questions Grady…
… and at the same time Danny questions Jack.
Whilst Lloyd continues wiping at Danny’s face…
… Danny gives his father a question/suggestion.
*******
*Clicky, WTF?!*
*Have a Song? Oh okay then… I guess this post is big enough*
Dear Reader, Part 3b of The Shining: Bathrooms will follow.
Yes, I know today’s Friday, but I was kinda busy yesterday, Dear Reader. And this post is about yesterday, so if this presents a problem, you know what to 
Library of Libraries 