Christmas is coming...

...and the lunch-break of the Radzer begins to incorporate frantic little dashes through freezing drizzle into Grafton Street emporia.

Two observations from today's foray:

1. Oxfam's cards this year are disappointing in one respect: they all refer explicitly to Christmas. Normally, I get some with "Season's Greetings", because I have several friends to whom it makes a difference. After some dithering, I decided that the principle of buying my cards from Oxfam was more important than the principle of having the option of sending cards with a non-Christian greeting. I can always cross it out.

2. Tripping innocently through HMV, I was abruptly stopped in my tracks. There on a rack of Irish DVDs, bold as brass, was - are you sitting down? - The best of RTE's Wanderly Wagon, vol. 1. Youse (by which I mean those of you to whom this means anything at all) may all already have seen this, but I hadn't, and it Smacked My Gob.

(Amateur-language-nerd aside: When I was small, the kids where I lived all pronounced it "WUNN-derly". I suspect this was a hypercorrection: they were used to hearing British accents on television, and so "wanderly" was heard as a British pronunciation of "wonderly". There's something to say about the socio-economic status of the two countries, and the locus of the cultural norm, and so on, but I'm not going to attempt it here.)

Oyster-assisted entry

k, ,,,,,,,x b. vbb hggy j 1. Michael McDowell is one of your local TD's. How do you feel about
this?! 2. Is it easy to keep a house as old as yours in good repair? 3.
Do you work on all sorts of academic materials, or a specific area? 4.
What's the boldest thing that the Oyster has done? 5. What is the
˚m ˘ˇ π . ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,, downside, if any, of living opposite a canal? bnb bbbbbbbhb020000000 gr xd ,bv

[Yes, I was gearing up to answer your questions, socmot. I'll get to them...]

And here's the entry I was trying for

( Questions from socmot )