Hidden Passages: Gothic Horror/Romance

The BBC decided to show a French "Count of Monte Cristo" on BBC4, so I thought I'd watch it as a change from watching Russian programming; ( Read more... )Since it was being shown as a serial in several parts, I had rather hoped that this was *not* the recent French film, of which I'd heard various mixed and on the whole less than approbatory reviews, but some earlier TV production, but according to the end-credits of the first instalment it was filmed in 2024 and is thus the new one after all.

On the basis of the parts that I've seen, I'd have to concur with the mixed reviews. This is *not* an immediate success; in fact the opening is one of the weakest parts, and might have turned me right off, but it does get better later on. ( Read more... )

Potted on most of the dwarf peas and sweet peas, and some of the most crowded of the kale. ( Towel-tomatoes )

( Basil, poppies, calendulas and rudbeckias )

I think the two not-tomato seedlings, which have survived and thrived, are actually cornflowers and not pot-marigolds. Which is good, because I like cornflowers and haven't sown any this year, owing to the 'wildflower trough' being still taken up by tulips (finally starting to show signs of dying back...).

( Lettuce and rocket )

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( Verdict from a real Russian )

I can't believe that after delaying the introduction of *any* mention of noun case-endings at all until Lesson 9 (and anything more complicated than the accusative and prepositional cases, which the other book covers in the very first lesson, until *after* dealing with verbs of motion!) the 1960s Penguin Russian course then proceeds to hit you with all the plural cases at once -- plus all the numerals from 1 to 100 in addition -- to be memorised in the course of a single lesson :-O
( 1930s Russian Basics )

Of course it's ridiculous to be doing this after a year's worth of intensive Russian listening practice, multiple films, and a whole load of fairly complex song translations, but I'm afraid I do actually need the formal grammar, and it hasn't painlessly inserted itself into my brain by means of mere passive exposure, toddler-fashion...

I finally pricked out the Demon Red chillies from their windowsill pot, putting six of them into a narrow tub in the mini-greenhouse with an eye to thinning them out later, and two into a temporary cardboard toilet-roll with an eye to giving them away in the near future; I should of course have hardened my heart and simply disposed of the spares! I did steel myself to throw away the very small ones.

The seedlings had better roots than the ones I potted up last year, although of course I'm doing so a week later.

And I do *finally* have a single nasturtium coming up, very belatedly.

I moved the Roma tomatoes out of the mini-greenhouse to make way for the chillies to live outside; the ones that were inside it do look a lot more vigorous than the ones that have been outside and unprotected all April, but it's quite possible that I put the 'best' seedlings under shelter in the first place and left the runts to take their chances! It looks as if I *may* have some germination from the fresh batch of basil that I put in there a couple of weeks ago, although the soil in that pot is looking very green and compacted. The only sign of life from the furry hedgehog wildlife garden is a single shoot of grass and a whole lot of white mould, but I shan't repine if that basil doesn't grow at all :-p