"Mollee! This afternoon is ze big Pedalo Race for visitors, so this morning you must 'ave lots of practice!" Boynton has spent a languorous afternoon with the cricket on revisiting such literary Girls Crystal gems, as Molly's Thrilling Pedalo Race "As Told to Doris Graham " - (or is that really G Cecil Gravely?)
Boynton was drawn to the story by an illustration of Molly in deep shock, facing a man in a beret:
"I regret, ma'amoiselle, but your name is not on my list," the steward told me. Something had happened to my entry form for the vital Pedalo Race!" Anyone who knows her will testify that this is Boynton's own life experience. Something is always happening to my entry form as well. Oh well, off now in search of more languorous surroundings to dream of a perfect evening and study Chapter 3: "My plan to Bowl out the trickster" .

This is a bit like the benign cat chasing the mouse, but creepier (via b3ta)

it's beginning to feel a lot like cricket. Is it that the contest has suddenly kicked in, or that Adelaide looks so good, or that in this perfect Melbourne weather the sound of muted commentary trickling though the house no longer feels premature? Watching the doco on the Chappell era the other night, there was that blast from the past of old pre-packer broadcasting. It wasn't just nostalgia that had Boynton jumping up and down and cheering as Lillee came into bowl. It was the sense that we were merely spectating, that the game itself was bigger than the presence of TV cameras. That it was secondary to being there, and you could see it in the intensity of people at the ground. Even the old "missing" every second over routine was ok by Boynton - it didn't corrupt the game's essential rhythm - the literal ebb and flow of different ends (and on the old ABC - the interval of overs). Of course the old B&W coloured lense of nostalgia may have been at work, as Boynton caught certain Proustian triggers of lounge-rooms past; in the silhouette of Ian Redpath, the toweling hatted kids waiting to run onto the ground, even the unmediated calling of Norman May.

footnote.The little dog must weigh a fair ton?

At first I thought I was back in the 50's water, but soon realised things were much, much darker. (via Prandial Post)

Rivals of the Schoolgirl Annual Collection

Gosh Hetty! Boynton's collapsed!
It's alright Nora. She's just recovering from discovering this page

Still getting over it. Boynton's Own collection is quite impressive, but nothing will match the memory of growing up with an aunt's 1959 edition as a child, nor her first (op-shop) addition (1958) . These covers promise it all: picnics, paddle-boats, and tea-rooms, and Boynton is always hoping that life will one day match those colours.

(nb 1955 is what you hope for, paddle-boat and waving man. 1954 is what you get: 2 dogs, the larger one becoming boss of the see-saw.)

Pet the kitty and make it purr says the link on Pop Culture Junk Mail. Purring - is it?... Bronte (Jack russell) believes it - she jumped out of basket underneath table to investigate.

Spiders and tangled webs. Boynton's post re mcb and huntsmen started a thing about blog v email. Did we err - or where's the line - is there one? It seems fairly common out there within clustering communities to use the private space of a blog as a usenet style notice-board, and one of the "reasons to blog" for Boynton was certainly to streamline the emailing links to friends deal. This issue sent Boynton off googling. Among the general articles on blog-soup, Meg Hourihan What we're doing when we blog observes:
Emails are often rapidly incorporated back into the site's content, creating a nearly real-time communication channel between the blog's primary author (its creator) and its secondary authors (the readers who email and comment)...
Moments of shared experience can be powerful connectors. They happen in the offline world when two strangers on the subway chuckle at the same funny billboard, and make eye contact as they do so. In the online world, they happen when I'm thinking about buying an iBook and I read on your blog that you've just bought one, at the same time.

Sometimes reading blogs on blogs turns up too many of the jaded, sneery, content-police - or the pithy historical put-down, that can dent the confidence somewhat. To post a poor analogy, sometimes it's like climbing a tree- best not to look down. Maybe I'd glimpse my readership
Anyway, Boynton prefers the positive spin Meg puts on this sense of shared experience and connection.

A bit of precipitation about. Boynton was a special person at her niece's school today. She was taken on a tour by four mad nine year olds. "It's spitting" she told them as the other guests, all grandparents, inspected the premises beneath navy umbrellas. She was a generation short. But quickly lapsed into nine year old mode, with the restless toed, high-spirited fidgetty girl-gang speak, broken up with the odd outburst of skipping.

Found a digital poetry blog last night. Followed a link and found this wonderful project, an interview with American perfomance poet Kim Rosenfield. Both form and content are inspiring. Boynton relates to the "choreography of language" approach to text, and this makes her want to jump straight back into it.

Memo to team-mates. Had we only studied this, we might have won this. (via Lindsay Marshall)

Boynton posted an image of "Boynton" aka Erin O'Brien Moore earlier. She may disappear in time. Not sure if the strange 30's dame, looking rather sad n surly, will 'take over".

More things poetic, but of the aural kind. A BBC Radio 4 program "The Heard" sounds pretty good.( via As above)

Boynton has been reading a bit of blogging on blogging lately. One of the better reads. (via Anil's links)

Over the years Boynton has built up a not insubstantial collection of phobias. Good to see mcb shares the Huntsman one. Boynton has swapped creepy stories with friends for years, but has also made slow progress in spider-management. At least, like one fellow sufferer, she has never leapt from a moving vehicle to flee the thing. Yet.

A Sunday sort of joke. (via Literacy weblog)

Finding things by chance is the essential lure. I can't remember the exact pathway to Clues but working backwards, it was from here.

Meant to post the falling teds last week. (via everywhere). Many more gems there.

"There is an irony in mobile status games. The highest status comes from not having a mobile at all - or rather having one, probably several, and having someone else carry and answer them for you. Privilege is all about anachronisms"
from a Guardian special report . (found here via mcb)
Guess Boynton has to take heart from this accidental honour gained from having not yet subscribed. While she occasionally suffers txt envy, the environmental cost of this dialect, the bleak, bald, sad shorthand. Drab shrinktalk seems too heavy. (More here)

Boynton was recently given a gift book a little book, or a tiny-coffee-table book, which is in keeping with the general scale of Boynton's house, containing words and paintings on women. So here's a little Katharine Hepburn.
...as one goes through life one learns that if you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move.

"a chilling tale of yet another terrorist nightmare" Kerry O'Brien's interview with Prof Alex Bobik (survivor of the Moscow theatre siege) on the 7.30 report last night was one of those compelling TV moments, with the mix of detatched detail and personal response, the inherent power of a grim survivor story.

While Boynton and dogs were crossing the Yarra yesterday we met a long crocodile line of schoolkids. One boy held a large cyprus branch. His teacher limply yelled:
"Put-the-tree-back-in-the-park-please!" several times before the kid dropped it over the bridge. Boynton would have added: "Put-the-tree-back-in-the tree-please!". We've often noticed boys bashing up trees in parks. Que?
Heavy link of the day. Just your average Summer reading list , Boynton would have thought.
Light link. See yourself in Lego. (via bluejoh)

Boynton went out last night and left keys in front door and windows open. Everything seems ok. This does not mean there was no unforced entry happening. The burglars may well have come in and had a good look round.Then moved on.
So the English call them pound shops. So much better than our "$2 shops"...More associations. The impounded goods therein will soon be transferred to a domestic rubbish depot (my lounge-room). Etc. This is a footnote to Mark's post with a nice net metaphor. When Boynton studied this area, the memex legacy was still going strong, and this is a variation: blogging as collective memory.

Went back to Waypath and found a good site. The scary thing is that Boynton had only just read an article that features here, and was intending to link shortly. Makes you wonder if the customised spider has extra-sensory powers.
The article is An Animal's place by Michael Pollan (via Aldaily)

The disappearance of animals from our lives has opened a space in which there's no reality check, either on the sentiment or the brutality