https://q4j2g5j9.stackpathcdn.com/ddg-dream/beae28d3873f5b9acdf277247e9de58bbd6a933d.jpg?2
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 13:38 (five years ago) link
lmao
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 11 September 2018 13:39 (five years ago) link
lol
soref otm, these are intense
― ogmor, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 13:39 (five years ago) link
The secretary giving the viewer the eye is straight out of 'Carry On' or 'Confessions of an Office Manager'.
― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 13:43 (five years ago) link
he's a 70's St Martens graduate, but doesn't get mentioned on the notable alumni lists for some reason.
― calzino, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 13:48 (five years ago) link
I would readily buy mark s's line of DeepEngland puzzles
― mick signals, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:10 (five years ago) link
mark s deep dream image is actually less distressing than the original imo, it's just made the roiling chthonic horror already present visible, like roddy piper's glasses in they live
― bitch that’s the tubby custard machine (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:16 (five years ago) link
level 6, "spirits" setting: https://q4j2g5j9.stackpathcdn.com/ddg-dream/47190ffafbe83175af0aee8fedcb90a142acff29.jpg?6
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:30 (five years ago) link
The typical tale is told, and exceedingly well told--though, alas, not exactly in the language of the natives--by Mrs. Bray in her Letters to Southey, of a certain midwife of Tavistock. One midnight, as she was getting into bed, this good woman was summoned by a strange, squint-eyed, little, ugly old fellow to follow him straight-way, and attend upon his wife. In spite of her instinctive repulsion she could not resist the command and in a moment the little man whisked her, with himself, upon a large coal-black horse with eyes of fire, which stood waiting at the door. Ere long she found herself at the door of a neat cottage; the patient was a decent-looking woman who already had two children, and all things were prepared for her visit. When the Child--a fine, bouncing babe--was born, its mother gave the midwife some ointment, with directions to "strike the child's eyes with it." Now the word strike in the Devonshire dialect means not to give a blow, but to rub, or touch, gently; and as the woman obeyed she thought the task an odd one, and in her curiosity tried the effect of the ointment upon one of her own eyes. At once a change was wrought in the appearance of everything around her. The new mother appeared no longer as a homely cottager, but a beautiful lady attired in white; the babe, fairer than before, but still witnessing with the elvish cast of its eye to its paternity, was wrapped in swaddling clothes of silvery gauze; while the elder children, who sat on either side of the bed, were transformed into flat-nosed imps, who with mops and mows were busied to no end in scratching their own polls, or in pulling the fairy lady's ears with their long and hairy paws. The nurse, discreetly silent about what she had done and the wonderful metamorphoses she beheld around her, got away from the house of enchantment as quickly as she could; and the sour-looking old fellow who had brought her carried her back on his steed much faster than they had come. But the next market-day, when she sallied forth to sell her eggs, whom should she see but the same ill-looking scoundrel busied in pilfering sundry articles from stall to stall. So she went up to him, and with a nonchalant air addressed him, inquiring after his wife and child, who, she hoped, were both as well as could be expected. "What!" exclaimed the old pixy thief, "do you see me to-day?" "See you! to be sure I do, as plain as I see the sun in the skies; and I see you are busy into the bargain," she replied. "Do you so? "cried he; "pray, with which eye do you see all this?" "With the right eye, to be sure." "The ointment! the ointment!" exclaimed the old fellow; "take that for meddling with what did not belong to you: you shall see me no more."
He struck her eye as he spoke, and from that hour till the day of her death she was blind on the right side, thus dearly paying for having gratified an idle curiosity in the house of a pixy.
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:32 (five years ago) link
in level six of "carry on deepdreaming the secretary" pretty much everything has turned in nigel farage's chin
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:37 (five years ago) link
Real Tavistock.
― Tim, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:44 (five years ago) link
^^in the version i read as a kid, of the midwife among the fairies story -- as collected by amabel williams-ellis* in "fairytales from the british isles" -- the fairy's true dwelling is also revealed by the ointment: "she saw she wasn't in a cottage at all, but sitting under the branches of an old oak, whose hollow and moss-grown trunk she had mistaken for the fireplace. fire and candle were nothing but glow-worms…"
*who married the guy who built portmeirion, so the number six is relevant
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:47 (five years ago) link
I figured out who the oddly outsized secretary with eaten cakes reminds me of
https://dg19s6hp6ufoh.cloudfront.net/pictures/611837579/large/1book10.jpeg
― mick signals, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:48 (five years ago) link
Ordinarily in crowded paintings like this I like to apply a fun piece of ILx method, by way of identifying the Xander (apparently peripheral character which the work is secretly all about) and/or the Bez (apparently superfluous figure without whom the whole enterprise falls to meaningless pieces). It's fun to try with (eg) Bosch or one of the Breughel chaps. I can't do it with these, and the fact that I find it impossible to identify that kind of centre might be why I find the pictures more unnerving than it feels like I should.
― Tim, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:56 (five years ago) link
ph'nglui mglw'nafh waldo r'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 14:59 (five years ago) link
nagl indeed
― Tim, Tuesday, 11 September 2018 15:02 (five years ago) link
i didn't truly understand non-euclidean geometry until i gazed upon these curséd paintings
― bitch that’s the tubby custard machine (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 11 September 2018 15:03 (five years ago) link
Came across Antique Roadshow last night. Some guy was showing two medals his great-grandad had received because he had saved 15 horses from drowning in a mine once. He did it alone because all the other miners were on strike. That's p real in itself, but the kicker was the medal expert admiring them and saying (qfm): "They're beautiful because they stand for one of the last true real British things, which is taking care of our animals, don't you think"?
I threw the telly in the garden. P sure I didn't hurt a fox while it landed.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 17 September 2018 15:06 (five years ago) link
They closed the show with the stuffed head of the dog that caught the last man to be hanged in Leicester, which was absolutely nightmarish.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Monday, 17 September 2018 15:10 (five years ago) link
IIRC the last true real British thing is being sure to watch Antiques Roadshow on iplayer so you can scroll straight past the boring, endless bits on medals and militaria.
― Tim, Monday, 17 September 2018 15:30 (five years ago) link
"this is a fascinating family heirloom, it's a genuine 19th-century bear-baiting muzzle, and we know from a family diary that it was still in use decades after bear-baiting was banned in 1835"
― mark s, Monday, 17 September 2018 15:32 (five years ago) link
Came across Antique Roadshow last night. Some guy was showing two medals his great-grandad had received because he had saved 15 horses from drowning in a mine once. He did it alone because all the other miners were on strike
Fucking scab.
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Monday, 17 September 2018 15:43 (five years ago) link
Can't deny the head of the dog and the story was some grim viewing. All smiles on my tube though.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 17 September 2018 15:45 (five years ago) link
The very state of daytime UK tv these days, I can't decide if that's Real England or not. It's all antique and salvage shows. Stuff in the attic, Antique Road Trip, Antique Road Show, Flog it, Money for Nothing, Salvage Hunters... You can spend your whole day clicking to and fro and be lulled to a coma at the end of the night. How is this opium for the masses?
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 17 September 2018 15:53 (five years ago) link
There is something wholesome about antiques. Whenever I'm on one of my UK trips I'll look for antique shops and usually get something from one. What you're confounded by is the noxious interface between this wholesomeness and the retreat into daytime television beloved of the Daily Express generation. Add in all these emails and self-service checkouts and whatnot that you get nowadays and it's just good too have some thing to remind you of the god old days!!
― imago, Monday, 17 September 2018 16:07 (five years ago) link
Without you know actually getting up and going to an antique dealer's, because fuck modern times right but you secretly love having everything delivered to your doorstep
― imago, Monday, 17 September 2018 16:11 (five years ago) link
which is best, emails or the black death
― mark s, Monday, 17 September 2018 16:12 (five years ago) link
the black death would be unpleasant but would at least put fleas back on the map
emails are good not bad so they win marginally
― imago, Monday, 17 September 2018 16:13 (five years ago) link
Back in my day you'd write perfectly-calligraphed thank you letters to your friends after they'd kicked a ball in the street with you, now I spend all my time buttfucking the libs on Twister
― imago, Monday, 17 September 2018 16:15 (five years ago) link
"What you're confounded by is the noxious interface between this wholesomeness and the retreat into daytime television beloved of the Daily Express generation"
Well yeah. I like antique, I like snooping around for it. But by god all those shows with all those terrible, terrible people.* Trying to pretend there exists an England outside of reality, a cardboard England without Brexit and John Terry and Grenfell and the homeless. I get why it's made, I get the desire to watch it, but sheesh the dose is just too strong.
* except Catherine Southon, light of my life, fire of my loins etc
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 17 September 2018 16:22 (five years ago) link
My mum loves these shows.
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Monday, 17 September 2018 16:23 (five years ago) link
A lot of people do. Why though? Is it nostalgia, the portrayal of a parochial care-free England of yore?
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 17 September 2018 16:28 (five years ago) link
I don't think my mother has much interest in England, to be honest.
― Zach Same (Tom D.), Monday, 17 September 2018 16:29 (five years ago) link
the semiology of nostalgia - each antique is a reconstruction of what we have been told we've lost
― imago, Monday, 17 September 2018 16:32 (five years ago) link
I hate Antiques Roadshow but I could watch Antiques Road Trip all day long tbh. There's something horribly obsequious about AR, that whole thing with the murmuring public creeping around the grounds of all those fucking stately homes, it's this awful pantomime of arsekissing. Totally get the digging mentality of ART though, it's good to watch people who know their stuff snooping around following their hunches, sometimes fucking up, but not really giving that much of a shit if they do.
― I'd Rather Kecak (NickB), Monday, 17 September 2018 16:38 (five years ago) link
ART is by far my fave of the bunch. They could get rid of the competition element altogether and I'd still watch it.
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 17 September 2018 16:48 (five years ago) link
the antiques shows are a blessed break from the "housing bubbles are mint", "let's make a housing bubble abroad" and "pigs and debt collectors are awesome" shows tbh
― every day there's a whining choad (Noodle Vague), Monday, 17 September 2018 19:25 (five years ago) link
oh and "fuck my children's social life I'm moving to Australia to get away from immigrants" shows
― every day there's a whining choad (Noodle Vague), Monday, 17 September 2018 19:27 (five years ago) link
There is some wry sport in watching the couples on Escape to the Country explain why they’re moving from large towns or outer London to the shires, obviously using words like ‘crowded’ as cover for xenophobia.
― suzy, Monday, 17 September 2018 19:31 (five years ago) link
They bring out my worst knee-jerk class instincts and also their appeal is baffling at best
― every day there's a whining choad (Noodle Vague), Monday, 17 September 2018 19:33 (five years ago) link
> It's all antique and salvage shows.
i find those are fairly harmless besides the pre-noon slots
Council House CrackdownHomes under the HammerDom on the Spot (Dom rides along with traffic cops)
which all reads like official tory policy.
― koogs, Monday, 17 September 2018 19:36 (five years ago) link
I remember an episode of Don't Get Done, Get Dom, where somebodies dog got electrocuted when it pissed on a lamppost that was temporarily rendered live by some hapless HV electrician working in the area. Nobody was brought to account for this travesty!
― calzino, Monday, 17 September 2018 19:54 (five years ago) link
My friend J and I have freelancer breakfasts where we watch Homes Under the Hammer and we inevitably yell SLUMLORD at whatever developer buys up a house in the Midlands to convert to an HMO. We got sucked in by the ridiculous music supervision and I must point out that our viewing does not take in Council Enforcers/Here Comes the Bailiffs-type shite.
― suzy, Monday, 17 September 2018 19:55 (five years ago) link
Dom on the Spot (Dom rides along with traffic cops)
I've not heard of this show but damn this is some ILX quoted out of context shit.
xp SLUMLORD otm!
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Monday, 17 September 2018 19:58 (five years ago) link
i cannot not think of lucy porter's description whenever i see Dom - Cockney Gollum.
― koogs, Monday, 17 September 2018 20:48 (five years ago) link
that year it rained forever (2008?). I was on hols in Newquay, sat in a caravan with unrelenting rain pounding its miserable shell with Don't Get Done, Get Dom on the portable tv.
― calzino, Monday, 17 September 2018 21:00 (five years ago) link
cursed island:
Spiders blamed after broken siren played creepy nursery rhymes randomly at night to UK townsfolk https://t.co/nQmhHcBL2l pic.twitter.com/jeVY6KkkeN— Boing Boing (@BoingBoing) September 17, 2018
― mark s, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 10:06 (five years ago) link
a spectre is haunting ipswich - the spectre of nursery rhymes triggered by spiders on the security cameras gazing across an empty industrial estate
― 🧛🏻♂️ F A T 🧛🏻♂️ D R A C U L A 🧛🏻♂️ (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 10:10 (five years ago) link
you'd expect such routine twattery from wasps, but not spiders :(
― calzino, Tuesday, 18 September 2018 10:16 (five years ago) link
the spiders aren't the ones who decided to fit out an industrial estate with the soundtrack from a horror movie tbf
― 🧛🏻♂️ F A T 🧛🏻♂️ D R A C U L A 🧛🏻♂️ (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 18 September 2018 10:19 (five years ago) link