#the English way

[acommonloon]

Six Years ago we were chasing about London, the city was decked out in Christmas cheer and we were blissfully unaware of all the changes to come.

Roy and Marguerite were our next door neighbors and adopted parents from when we lived in Bedfordshire in the early nineties. They’d come down on the train to spend the day with us.

Things were fine until Roy decided to take the stairs at one of our stops. Roy is from Manchester and Marguerite, a Welsh woman from Wrexham.

I can still hear Marguerite shouting at him to not take the stairs. It was no use, we all abandon the lift, which had just arrived, to accompany him. He very nearly didn’t make it and later that day, though he tried to carry on, he physically broke down. In the years since, he recovered somewhat but was never the same.

Why share this bitter memory? Well first and foremost, it’s my blog and… that’s it.

Recently I’ve been watching FB Reels of an Englishman named Phil Carr. He reminds me of Roy. Funny, sharp, and his ruddy cheeks and voice are reminiscent of the younger Roy who could walk D and I into begging for a break even though we were in our twenties.

The reel that prompted this trip down memory lane was a piece Phil posted on the town of Milton Keynes. Phil’s bits are mostly about the towns of the UK. They are informative, humorous, and more than anything are exactly how most educated English people of a certain era express themselves. I love it!!!

Paraphrasing-

Milton Keynes is only fifty something years old and was created when the Queen stopped giving a shit.

There’s a Tesla dealership next to a Victoria Secrets so new Tesla owners can get a glimpse of women’s underwear for the last time.

Anyway. If you love the English, like I do, or merely want some insight about the UK, check out his Reels or TikTok.

[frstndlstlns]

The Fraud

A filthy boy stood on the doorstep.

The mysteries of Mrs Touchet were, finally, unfathomable.

— Zadie Smith

[lelouch]

disclaimer yo no hice el meme namás lo saqué del feisbu

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[suomeen]

Shopping in Finland with Google Translate be like...

[zan0tix]

ALPHA KIDS: Draw your best friends!

DIRK: I'd say I'm better at one on one character interaction work of the more intimate variety, but I think this piece came together nicely. DIRK: Fun for the whole family style wholesomeness, any motherfucker in the radius of a screen displaying this image will instantly get hit with a sore case of heartburn and their tear ducts will clock in overtime at the weeping factory.

ROXY: im so proud of these i think these are my best designs yet :3 but omg dirk callie and jake were SOOO peculiar about their damn designs over my shoulder. jake wanted me to clarify that even in pink pen form his little guy is BLUE. so there. sigh this is the one occasion they could take notes from janey.. JUST LET LE ARTIST WORK!

JANE: Boy! I don't draw often but I always was fond of calligraphy growing up. I was kind of inspired by all of the other's works, but especially Calliope's swirls she puts in her art. It's very fun to add!

JAKE: Im not quite the best with posing, but i find the head very fun to study! Especially skulls.. so good ole calliope makes for the perfect muse! (hehe)

CALLIOPE: i realized i hadn't ever made a piece with Us in the same place at once. u_u CALLIOPE: bUt since it's reality now here's all of Us together, United at last! ^u^

==->

[vriskan8or]

let her go

[bioorangendirektsaft]

listen i think if anyone would figure out that reptiles and birds are related to each other it's definitely tuffnut

[alizalayne]

happy halloween!! the second book in my graphic novel trilogy is available to preorder. It's about what happens when you grow a paw. it is also a dragon mystery. and you also get to find out where penny came from, which is quite interesting

[bruciemilf]

It’d be so fucking funny if Jason fought so hard to intimidate Harvey after the Lazarus pit.

Look here, here’s 8 heads in this duffel bag, aren’t I such a scary and dangerous crime lord?!

Harvey laughs, actually so amused by Jason’s audacity.

“Oh. Oh that’s so cute,” hands on his hips, dad stance on. He’s this close.

“Hey, jackass, THOMAS WAYNE was my father in law. Also, I remember when you were 11, in your little Wonder Woman pajamas, knocking on my and your dad’s door like ‘ I tHrEW uP—“

“shut up SHUT UP SHUT UP—“

[clockworkspider]

What never came across in either translation or the drama is that JGY spoke in kindergarten teacher voice (the one people often say the use to pacify angry customers) almost all the time, esp during guanyin temple.

[iliothermia]

Stavrouakis' work has always meant so much to me, I collect his publishing as I can. I wanted to share some of his depictions of Greek Jews and our clothing, especially the ones I haven't seen shared online.

[hood-ex]

All the Americans on RedNote/Xiaohongshu that are interacting with Chinese people for the first time and are realizing that our governments hate each other but that we can build community/friendship with Chinese people reminds me of a conversation I had with a student of mine.

For context, I taught kids from China how to speak English for 4 years. I had one student named Rain (his English name) from Guangzhou. He was about 9 years old, and I'd been teaching him since the very beginning of his English journey when he only knew very basic vocabulary like vegetables. He got to the point in his language learning where he could use simple words and sentences to talk about more complex subjects.

There was one class we had that I still think about to this day.

"What classes did you have at school today?" I asked. "Math? English? PE?"

"Math yes. English class yes. And... history," he said.

"Oh history? Nice," I said.

"Teacher, I don't like USA a little bit," he said.

"You don't like it? Why?" I asked.

"Because..." he tried to explain before realizing that he didn't have the words he needed to express himself. He switched to miming and drawing the USA fighting with/being mean to China.

"So you don't like the USA because the USA fights China? Hurts China?" I asked for clarification.

"Yes, yes, I don't like it a little bit," he nodded.

"Do you like USA people? I like people from China," I said.

"You like China people?" he asked.

"Yes, I love Chinese people," I said. "I don't like when the USA and China fight, but I love Chinese people."

"Me too!" he said. "Kind of don't like USA, but I like USA people."

In that moment, I was amazed that even with a language barrier, and even with our age difference, we could come to the same conclusion that we didn't like what our countries did to each other, but that didn't mean that he had to hate American people or that I had to hate Chinese people.

"USA people and Chinese people are kind of different," I said, referring to our cultural differences. "We are the same too."

"Yes, kind of the same," he agreed.

That's what many Americans on RedNote/Xiaohongshu are starting to understand better.

[slavhew]

look at this idiot not aware that his body is warm and his touch comforting everyone point and laugh

[denkryn]

the way that arsenal has spent more time lying on the field than running on it lol

[keferon]

………..I like to torment myself.

So! I’m back to my usual fuckery, trying to make hand made figures instead of buying them like a normal human being. This time I’m making First Aid! Out of some action toy and plastic sheets because apparently rebuilding Gundams wasn’t hard enough

My starter pack is some white and red styrene sheets + the figure I bought off the shelf. I think these are called “Dummy 13”? Anyway

Drift figure left me with a lot of little cuts. Now I have cuts aaand burns. Nice deal~ I’ve never done anything like it before and my hands aren’t happy lmao

This thing is. Like. Super movable:D It’s neck has two joints, also it’s torso can bend in a bunch of places and ways. Even the tippy toes are movable hehe

Basically. I couldn’t paint anything bc. Well. Winter. So I decided to build out of details that are already the right color👍

It will probably need some painting anyway but not the dramatic amount and not enough to poison me