Below are the 9 most recent journal entries recorded in rugerthepug's LiveJournal:

Thursday, January 12th, 2012
6:58 pm	Words I learnt in 2011 Distaff - the female side of the family; woman's work or domain; a staff for spinning wool Desultory - poor effort; no plan or purpose Bowlderised - syn. For sanitised or censored Quotidian - literally occurring daily; commonplace Rusticated - suspend from school Avuncular - of or relating to an uncle Gnosticism - matter is evil and spiritual truths Syncretism - combination of different forms of beliefs or practice Post the banns - get married Antimacassar - a cover to protect the arms or backs of furniture Serge - some kind of twilled cloth - diagonal rib on the back, smooth front Lapis lazuli - semiprecious blue stone Obloquy - abusive language, ill-repute Sibilant - hissing sh sibilant snake Magus - singular of magi Vitiate - to make false; debase Demiurge - subordinate deity; autonomous creative force Panjandrum - ridiculous British war machine Falstaff - Shakespeare fat convivial rogue Sabot - feet of chairs Midrash - first millennial explanation of biblical texts Chiascuro - studies in light and tone, rather than colour Espalier - to grow a plant flat along a wall, trellis or railing Parvenu - one who has recently risen in status and is not yet dignified enough for it Inter alia - among other things Meretricious - pertaining to a prostitute, tawdry and falsely attractive, pretentious Vernissage - private art showing Solipsistic - extreme egocentrism, the self is the only existent thing Contrail - literally condensation trail Extempore - ad hoc, off the cuff Reification - regard something abstract as concrete, material, real Lapidary - gem stone not diamond cutter polisher Simulacram - insubstantial semblance Gimcrack - gewgaw Prelapsarian - before the downfall of humankind Panglossian - excessively optimistic, "Candide" by Voltaire Sui generis - unique genius Oud - type of lute Parapet - rampart or protective wall Stile - steps for passing over a wall Propitious - good omen Propitiate - appease pacify Atavistic - throwback to something on the past or ancestry Avatar - embodiment, representation Burnoose - tunisian star wars Firmament - vault or arch of the sky; field or sphere or activity/interest Fondouk - traditional inn (Arabic) where travellers stay with their animals Excelsior - fine wood shavings for packing fragile items; Latin for ever higher Djnoun - plural of djinn Rivulet - small stream Hellespont - old name for the Dardanelles Salad days - early or glory days Dolorous - adjective for misery or grief Marionette - string puppet Folderol - useless accessory or ornament Caterwaul - harsh cry Martinet - strict disciplinarian Favourite quotes: "Less pity, more mercy" - don't know "To the age its art. To art its freedom" - Vienna secessionists (Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 19th, 2006
7:32 am	Inscrutableness is very sexy Alicia Gorey really rocks my boat. Her cool, aloof, professional manner makes her seem ever so fascinating. The weatherman disclosed a few months ago that Ms Gorey had just turned 25. She was visibly irritated at having this revealed to a public salivating to know more. So, so sexy. Damn ice queens. (Comment on this)
Saturday, December 9th, 2006
8:00 am	Cape Tribulation H. and I are back from our holiday in QLD. I must admit, I felt faintly embarrassed about going to Queensland for my holiday, but I had a really great time. Snobs miss out on so much fun. One highlight was visiting the Cape Trib Fruit Farm for fruit tasting. I tried all sorts of wacky fruit, like soursop, black sapote (which really does taste like tofu) and jaboticaba. Durian was disgustingly sweet; Asian people just love sweet stuff. Miracle fruit performed the first ever taste-hoodwink I've been subject to. After chewing a quite sour and un-enjoyable little berry, lime had been transmogrified into lime with an amazingly sweet, delicious flavour. It was like sucking on processed white sugar dissolved in lime juice. Star apple, on the other hand, tastes like snot softened with Nutrasweet. Snotfruit. Great. Lychees taste like Rambutan! Hurrah! Why didn't someone tell me? I often think how insular my social interactions are when I become amazed at seeing different people's lifestyles. The farm is run by a married couple who have been there for years; they bought the block on a whim while travelling through Cape Tribulation. The farm's commercial crop is mangosteens, which wasn't in season. How strange that tropical fruit should have a season! Why have these things gone unconsidered? Less tangentially, for many years I have harboured Arcadian fantasies about life on the farm. Farming always seems such a meditative existence. Their lives must have such a rhythm and activity list that mine doesn't. Farmers often exude an attractive, quiet dignity that must be environmental in origin So much time in one's own company is not totally a negative. I could gaze at my navel virtually to the point of puking, I guess. And not so attractive that I would seriously consider it. Just mildly interesting. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006
12:08 pm	Flaxen-haired girl Friday, tall, nice body. Also not a pretty face. Unaware of either. Why should I care? One of the (many)things I hate about my particular profession is how shallow I have become. Yes, that's right, it's not my fault, it's the 'system's'. And you can go fuck yourself. I seem now to have a bias towards beauty as being incorruptible, the highest echelon, a sign of true moral virtue. I am aware how false this belief is. Yet it has totally arrested my personality. How disgusting. (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 7th, 2006
6:51 am	Rob's bizarre incongruities, episode 1 Plastered across the black, tight t-shirt of one of the army of prosaic, plain, Chinese coffee girls seen as part of my daily ritual at SCGH. Je suis horny. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 2nd, 2006
6:00 pm	My life: a pictorial essay ha (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, August 18th, 2006
6:21 pm	Test Have you ever met someone (in a male meeting another male context, you see) where you think on first impression, 'This looks like one cool dude'? Perhaps understated, short, salt-and-pepper hair, tall, well dressed. English accent. And then the poor man laughs, and he looks like Benny Hill. I propose that there is nothing more ridiculous than a jovial, ruddy-faced Englishman. How can this metamorphosis be so complete, acute and rapid? (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 2nd, 2006
2:26 pm	and more This encapsulates a person I know: Cinderella The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels, Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels Begin on tilted violins to span The whole revolving tall glass palace hall Where guests slide gliding into light like wine; Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall Reflecting in a million flagons' shine, And glided couples all in whirling trance Follow holiday revel begun long since, Until near twelve the strange girl all at once Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk She hears the caustic ticking of the clock. - Sylvia Plath This is very cute: Bride and Groom Lie Hidden for Three Days She gives him his eyes, she found them Among some rubble, among some beetles He gives her her skin He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists They are amazed at themselves, they go feeling all over her He has assembled her spine, he cleaned each piece carefully And sets them in perfect order A superhuman puzzle but he is inspired She leans back twisting this way and that, using it and laughing Incredulous Now she has brought his feet, she is connecting them So that his whole body lights up And he has fashioned her new hips With all fittings complete and with newly wound coils, all shiningly oiled He is polishing every part, he himself can hardly believe it They keep taking each other to the sun, they find they can easily To test each new thing at each new step And now she smoothes over him the plates of his skull So that the joints are invisible And now he connects her throat, her breasts and the pit of her stomach With a single wire She gives him his teeth, tying the the roots to the centrepin of his body He sets the little circlets on her fingertips She stiches his body here and there with steely purple silk He oils the delicate cogs of her mouth She inlays with deep cut scrolls the nape of his neck He sinks into place the inside of her thighs So, gasping with joy, with cries of wonderment Like two gods of mud Sprawling in the dirt, but with infinite care They bring each other to perfection. - Ted Hughes (Comment on this)
2:14 pm	online poetry has changed my life Strumpet Song With white frost gone And all green dreams not worth much, After a lean day's work Time comes round for that foul slut: Mere bruit of her takes our street Until every man, Red, pale or dark, Veers to her slouch. Mark, I cry, that mouth Made to do violence on, That seamed face Askew with blotch, dint, scar Struck by each dour year. Walks there not some such one man As can spare breath To patch with brand of love this rank grimace Which out from black tarn, ditch and cup Into my most chaste own eyes Looks up. - Sylvia Plath A Dream Within A Dream Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep- while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? - Edgar Allan Poe (Comment on this)