Articles in “Life, the Universe, and Everything”

I’ve blogged so much about the unexpected horror that was the spring-cleaning of the study this year. I’ve devoted an entire blog post to the empty space pre-carpet cleaning. I’ve blogged about the slow re-build.

But finally—finally!—the study no longer looks like the squalid yet arty black-and-white photographs that I originally posted.

Now it looks like this:

It also has 100% more hot-pink plastic cuckoo clocks:

And 100% more swan-shaped TV lamps:

(In fact, combined with my insanely gorgeous Flash Gordon duck print, the study now has a whole unplanned bird-thing going on.)

As an added bonus, the spare room no longer looks like this, but like this:

Admittedly, I’ve barely started on the braided rug I intend to put in the study, but I hereby declare the spring-cleaning of the study officially over for another year.

… just turned up on my doorstep, and it’s making a bad day (Nick’s off for some frightening medical tests this morning, while I’ll be invigilating an exam) that much brighter.

A few weeks ago, I came across Kathleen Jennings’s blog and, particularly, her Dalek Game, where she replaces a word in a famous book title with the word “Dalek” and then draws a delightful pen-and-ink sketch of the result.

My favourite? Has to be Wuthering Daleks.

But thanks to the Wuthering Daleks page, I came across something even more delightful.

It’s right here.

Now, the Dalek of the Baskervilles? That’s brilliant. But the Flash Gordon picture made my heart sing. My love for that quotation outweighs the combined value of all the kingdoms of Mongo. Combine that with ducks (who doesn’t like ducks? Only monsters!), and you have something with which I fell in love at first sight.

So I texted Nick, and said, “Please, please find out if there’s any way we can get a print of this.” And because the artist is a woman who understands the susceptible hearts of geeks, the print landed on my doorstep this morning.

And it’s magnificent.

Right now, it’s sitting on my desk, just making me happy. But it’s going to be hung right here in the study, where I can see it as I work, and remember that we only have fourteen ducks to save to Earth.