sweetly reminiscent, something mother used to bake

[freckles_and_doubt]

Too weird. Cooking malva pudding is apparently a pervasive process, to the point where I can still smell it on my hair after two days. I am not sure if the effect of this is to mark me inescapably as a stay-at-home domestic type, or if it'll operate closer to David's well-known Vanilla Theory Of Seducing Women (men smelling of vanilla are comforting and safe and associated with kitchens, baking and nurture, therefore get rebuffed less). While he has never adequately demonstrated the validity of this theory to my scientific satisfaction, I possibly ought to go and stand hopefully in a well-ventilated area full of interesting men just in case.

I have emerged from the fog sufficiently to finish this batch of marking, which is something of a relief as I was becoming more than somewhat bored with dragging the pile fruitlessly between home and campus in order to studiously ignore it. Having marked the lot more or less by pretending not to, I have to conclude that students are odd. They had an option between a slightly tricky question on World of Warcraft and its potential for online eroticism, and an easy, wide-open one on the kinds of narrative gaps fanfic usually fills. I spent three lectures on fanfic and half a one on WoW. The WoW question answerers gave me some lovely essays, whereas the fanfic ones were uniformly blah. Memo to self: less information next time, the resulting panic seems to inspire students to actual intellectual activity.

Last Night I Dreamed: an epic dash through forests and into the cellars of houses to evade the golem armies staggering through the trees. I woke up abruptly with my heart pounding at the point where the traumatised girl in the white dress sat bolt upright on her bed and screamed because of the incredibly significant shapes of the ceramic jugs on the cellar wall.

Comments

[starmadeshadow.livejournal.com]

WoW has potential for online eroticism? Darn, I knew I should've bought the manual, and not disabled chat...

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I honestly can't say - anecdotal evidence of WoW weddings aside - whether WoW has any actual, practical erotic potential; all they had to do was demonstrate its theoretical potential ... The good essays babbled about the power of co-operation and community, and shared experience, and role-play freedom, and identity dissociation, and visual idealisation and what have you. For some reason WoW seems to appeal very strongly to a roomful of humanities students who've never actually played.

[bumpycat.livejournal.com]

Clearly they haven't played, because then they would quickly realise that most people use the anonymity to, er, express themselves in publicly unacceptable ways. Online eroticism in WoW usually extends no further than "lol i took my armor off!!!11"

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

One of the whole points of online eroticism is the freedom it gives you to express yourself anonymously in ways unacceptable in the real world. Of course, the notional 85% response to the question, the one I never actually received, would point out that one of the drawbacks to WoW as an erotic space is precisely this group/game element, which works directly against meaningful/intimate interaction and may outweigh all the other elements which work in its favour.

The question actually asked them to try and account for why WoW weddings take place. Of course, next year's question is going to read: Online eroticism in WoW usually extends no further than "lol i took my armor off!!!11". Discuss.

[bumpycat.livejournal.com]

Well, to extend my statement, eroticism in WoW is generally very limited and unimaginative. And, there is little interesting in the publicly unacceptable behaviour - it would have been better to describe it as "annoying and intrusive".

World of Wankcraft

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

lol u sed "eroticism" and "extend" in teh same sentens!!11

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

And what's significant about the shape of jugs?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

They had significant shapes. Come on, this was a dream. Wanton smutty misinterpretation aside, a dream doesn't have to have a reason. They were white ceramic jugs. Their shape was extremely meaningful, and rather threatening, for no adequately defined reason.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

dream doesn't have to have a reason

Dreams often have their reasons, of which the reason knows nothing.

Re: World of Wankcraft

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

Also, icon swoonage. Gotta love me some Ichabod Crane.

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Reason has moons, but moons not hers
Lie mirror'd on her sea,
Confounding her astronomers,
But O! delighting me
- Ralph Hodgson

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Shiney!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

That's lovely. Also, now I know a lot more about Ralph Hodgson than I ever did before, thanks to the miracle of Google. He's the "tamed and shabby tigers" man. Cool!

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Ralph Hodgson is my favourite poet by far. He even beats John Donne. And Shelley. In fact, should my friends ever wish to wow me with a hard to find present, you can track down one of his books. I've never actually looked on Amazon for them, but I've certainly never seen them anywhere. Berkeley had one in their catalogue, but it was in one of their off campus specialist libraries and I never got around to going there.

Ah, Berkeley library, how I miss thee ...

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

For the benefit of the ignorant seeking enlightenment, what's malva pudding? Apart from something which makes you smell edible, that is.

& did it work?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Interesting, must be a specifically Souf Affrican thing. Malva pudding is a baked, sponge cakey sort of pudding, quite dense-textured, over which you pour a cream/sugar/orange juice/sherry/butter sauce while the cake and sauce are still hot. It's one of those delectable winter things. Of course it worked, my malva pud recipe is a failsafe that I can, and quite often do, successfully cook while tipsy. I'll post the recipe when I'm at home and have it handy.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Apparently it is South African

Wait, is Tipsy Tart also South African?

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

That sounds really nice. I'll have to bookmark the recipe when you post it for use during our winter. It's been a bit warm here recently. Though I have a recipe for a lemon drizzle cake which is done in by somewhat similar method. Most luscious.

& I was actually enquiring whether standing around smelling of malva pudding where there are interesting men worked! ;)

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Wait! I've just realised that you probably wanted to know if the edible-smelling me bit worked. Alas, no attempts at pick-up by men with domestic virtues. Now I've washed my hair, so I'll never know. Until the next time I make malva pudding, at any rate.

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

Shucks! Still, it's your winter, you can go try again for several months. I gather there's a queue forming for your now famed Malva pudding anyhow.

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

If you knew extemp better you'd know she's a famed cook altogether. If she asks you "would you like to come for supper, I'm cooking ... " you answer Yes! before the sentence has been completed :)

[bronchitikat.livejournal.com]

So I'd better go research flights to SA from UK now?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Awww! Which reminds me. Do you and your fambly want to come over for supper on Saturday, w-n? For no reason other than that I haven't seen you guys properly for too long.

(This is not, in fact, a response to flattery, I meant to ask you on Monday and got repeatedly sidetracked.)

[tngr-spacecadet.livejournal.com]

Please send failsafe malva pudding recipe urgently, I have been meaning to make some!

We have some more Doctor Who to offer in return, including a delightful Agatha Christie episode and a double featuring, according to the teaser, killer shadows in a library.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

The "killer shadows in a library" one takes a while to get going, I found the first half just threw too many jarring ideas into the blender. But by the end of the second half it had all come together well.

PS: mort, try making some gin-soaked malva, pretty please?

PPS: Hey, who turned out the lights?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

ooh, that is so a deal. For more Doctor Who I'd even make the malva pudding. Recipe coming up.