Cats-in-residence

"This piece could only be improved by cats." (Via David O'Neill.)

Linkage

Not literary in any particular sense, but do read this piece by Michael Ogg on what it means to depend on home health care aides when sidelined by a permanent disability (via Jane Gross).

A. L. Kennedy on why the worst part of writing is waiting.

Phil Nugent on the trials and tribulations of Winter Wipeout!

Finally, I got a nice piece of news the other day from my friend Helen Hill's mother Becky. Helen's last film, "The Florestine Dresses," has been completed by her husband Paul, and will premiere at the Indie Grits Film Festival at the Nickleodeon Theatre in Columbia, South Carolina on April 13-17, 2011. I will definitely be there for the premiere, and will do what I can to help gather a large group of Helen's friends for the occasion.

(There was an exhibit of the dresses themselves a few years ago; alas, I missed it, though I remember seeing the dresses not long after Helen had first found them - there were more than a hundred of them! - in trash bags on the street and rescued them and begun to investigate the story of their creation.)

Tight spots

At the FT, Dr. E. Lee Spence tells Ed Hammond about diving for treasure:

One of my favourite projects was the wreck of the Regina. She was a Scottish-built steel-hulled steamer that went down in a storm in 1913 on Lake Huron. Not only was she carrying antiques, she was also laden with hundreds of cases of Scotch and Champagne. I had never liked Scotch before salvaging that wreck. Although time in glass can make Scotch go either way, it had improved with age. We drank a lot of bottles – all in the name of research. One of the technical terms I learnt during that time is “knee-walking, commode-hugging drunk”.

I’ve been in the occasional tight spot. Once I was in a modern wreck and my oxygen regulator failed. I was about 80ft deep and spent four long minutes swimming through pitch dark rooms and passages trying to find a way out.