Sunday, December 09, 2007

onions, new word, Christmas jazz

Earlier this year I wrote about the special onions from Roscoff in Britanny, which I had bought in Sainsbury's. I was wondering whether they would turn up again, and sure enough there they were this morning. I was pleased because, as the label says, they are sweet, pink and juicy. My reference also, I believe I am right in saying, led Lucy Kempton, who lives near the place where the onions originate, and who happened to be researching the variety, to visit this site. That in turn led to the Compasses site where Lucy has illustrated my Handbook for Explorer poems with her photographs. Testimony to the power of blogging and to the power of the onion.

Twice in the last two day I have been puzzled by the word miniseries, which I pronounced in my mind with emphasis on the the second syllable. I had no idea what it meant except that it was something that you looked at. It was only to day that I realized that what the newspaper meant was mini-series, as in a sequence of television programmes.

In the Pantiles, a jazz band, its members dressed in Father Christmas outfits, plays Jingle Bells in the watery light. A giant on stilts staggers around in huge boots. He has the word "loony" on the back of his tee shirt.

1 comment:

Lucy said...

I have a bowl of the pink Roscoffs on the side at the moment, it's always a dilemma whether to use them in a dish or just to use the ordinary whitish ones; they improve everything but are too special to squander. I always think of you when I use them!