a scrabbling together of various things

This city never stops changing;this morning I found that the buses no longer run along the pleasant garden-nursery-lined road close to home, but instead are a good (not-so-good) long walk away, and...there has been much foot-slogging and only minor getting things done today.  The fair trade shop has vanished, too, despite their website saying they're still there, grump, grump.  I was hoping to make more progress in getting and sending presents today.

So I got home tired, and revived myself in watching the latest episode of Doctor Who.  Here are some thoughts on that, and on the last few episodes, cut because they're long, and so that non-Who followers can skip them.

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I saw a local production of Hamlet recently, too.  My, but that play's a knockout.  always, always something new to shine out. This time what hit me was the pity of Polonius' story. How much love and desire to protect and foster up his children there was (the scene of the three of them together was terrific) , and how hopelessly inadequate he is for the task of making any sort of safety for any of them (himself, his children) in the stinking quagmire that Denmark has become, thanks to the brutally reckless crashing about of the powerful. 

and two Russianish links to finish with:

In the Pirmosky Safari Park, a tiger has unexpectedly struck up a friendship with a goat offered him as food.  (Youtube video, about a minute.)

In australia's Northern Territory, Boxing Nick, the last of the Romanovs in my country (I expect) has died.  It's such an NT story: the long trip going nowhere much, the car breaking down, and five years in Katherine, and spending his time teaching his dog to balance a can of beer on his head.  :)  Not a sad story, really.  The Russian representative in the NT called his death a "tragic end", but there are worse ways to die than of a heart attack, under a tree, with your dog alongside.