24 May 2010

Monday stuff and items


1) The Design Awards were held last Thursday night, and our Tall Designer went along. Unfortunately he didn't pick up any prizes himself - but he did collect the prize for the Best Designed Children's Non-fiction Book on behalf of John and Stella Danalis for Riding the Black Cockatoo. Hooray!

2) Are you looking for something very interesting to while away your Monday morning? Meanjin and Jonathan Walker have you covered. Jon's guest post over at Spike on the Making of Five Wounds (in two parts) is absolutely fascinating. And there are videos - what more could you want?

3) Speaking of awards, and speaking of speaking, Speech Pathology Australia have announced their Book of the Year Award shortlist and we are very pleased and proud to see so many of our books.

4) The lyrics in the Wombles theme song are 'The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we' not 'The Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we'.

This proves two things: 1) punctuation is important, and 2) the world is an unstable place and at any minute things that you thought were solid can be ripped from underneath you.*
Also, Bloomsbury is reissuing the Wombles books. Womble free, wombles. Womble free!

5) People appear to be naming their babies Cullen. We feel that this is ... an interesting choice.
Speaking of names, likeable Collingwood** midfielder Steele Sidebottom is closing in on the coveted title of Name of the Year. He's up against Charity Beaver in the semi-finals. In our opinion Steele wins hands down.***

6) And finally, we have a new addition to our list of words that are impossible to pronounce. You've been hearing the news readers refer to it as the 'Icelandic volcano', you've seen it written down: Eyjafjallajokull. But have you heard it pronounced? We got a little addicted to clicking play and hearing it again, and again.


*To other Onions, it proved them right all along, but they can pipe down and let the others wallow in their sudden uncertainty.
** Two adjectives that don't normally hang out together in this neck of the woods now that the Cake-maker Extraordinaire has left the premises.
***Luckily that's all he looked like winning on the weekend. Go Cats!


3 comments:

Miss Cackle said...

I may or may not know a young bookynook customer called Neptune Romeo. I think it is the best name EVER!

Jonathan Walker said...

Is Mr. Sidebottom any relation to Frank Sidebottom, the musical genius from Timperley with a papier-mache head? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Sidebottom). I still remember his fascinating lectures on 'Space', 'Puppets', etc., etc.

Anonymous said...

Further to the Wombles debacle: free rein. FREE REIN? Not free reign? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.