New Zealand fur seals begging for a caption

It's been raining for two days - not heavily, but enough to get things nice and wet. I doubt we'll be irrigating any more this season. But Monday - Easter Monday - was an absolute cracker of a day. We had a couple of people staying in the farm cottage, and we took them up to Kaikoura to go swimming with the dolphins. While they did that, we walked round the point and admired the seals.

Rather begs for a caption, doesn't it? [EOS 300D with 90-300mm zoom on full extension, roughly equivalent to 480mm on 35mm]

Wednesday, March 30, 2005 12:00 am (permalink)

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The Truffle Book

Winner of the Special Jury Award at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. "Absolutely rivetting" - a well-known prince. Available as softback, limited edition hardback, and PDF. Free sample PDF.

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current reading

It's taking me far too long to read this. I have been a fan of Pynchon since reading Gravity's Rainbow as a student. Against The Day strikes me as one of his most approachable novels, full of fantastic characters and wild invention, but I've been busy doing word things, and sometimes the last thing I want to do is read. But this is like fine wine, keeps tempting me to another glass. At 1085 pages, I'll be squiffy before I'm finished.

just read

I've read two books called Heat in the last month. One was damn scary, and one was by George Monbiot, about global warming (which has a fantastic cover). Some would say I've been and gone and had my mid-life crisis, but it didn't involve doing an apprenticeship at the altar of real Italian cuisine and a tyrannical chef. Bill Buford is not me, and for that I'm grateful. I suspect he may be too. I enjoyed it - the kitchen stuff was pretty compelling (as was the Italian butcher I may just have to visit next time I'm on Italian truffle time), but somehow the whole thing didn't hang together. I know where Bill's coming from - and I can sort of sense where he went - but his own motivation (and his family's reaction) remain mysterious.