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igenlodeFor the record, the dark-leaf chilli is *not* Explosive Ember but Zimbabwe Black. (I asked the owner of the original plant, and she remembered what variety she had planted two seasons ago!)
Apparently they are rated as much milder on the Scoville scale than the Demon Red (circa 20-30,000 ("fairly mild") as versus 50,000 ("moderate to hot")), which explains why biting an unripe purple chilli was really not hot at all...
I have planted the two surviving dwindled narcissus bulbs out again (one of the three that I lifted this summer turned out to have been eaten out from the inside and was quite hollow). I found five of them in total, the other two being rotted, and despite emptying out more pots have no idea what happened to the remainder of the original seven, or which was the "one pot with visible bulb foliage in it" back in July :(
I have successfully (I think) finished the manuscript draft of my Red Shoes" fic, after a day or so of fiddling around with the ending to try to give Julian a bit more agency. One of the things that Matthew Bourne got completely wrong about "The Red Shoes", so far as I remember, is that he was presenting it as the story of poor persecuted Vicky suffering at the hands of men, whereas the original story, not being a polemic, gives Julian a narrative and character development of his own rather than just having him symbolise Selfish Love as versus Art (with Art being implied to be the true choice). In fact his plot arc introduces the first scenes and starts before Vicky even enters the film, let alone before she becomes a protagonist -- and a *long* way before the two of them fall in love with one another.
One thing that I did notice about both "The Red Shoes" and "A Matter of Life and Death" is that in both these films Powell & Pressburger -- being men! -- don't appear particularly interested in the 'falling in love' process, but far more interested in the plot potential of 'being in love'. They don't spend their screen time on a prolonged 'will they, won't they' or 'enemies to lovers' process; they pretty much cut straight to 'the characters have already fallen in love off-screen, now what *happens* to them as a result?', which is quite unusual.
Apparently they are rated as much milder on the Scoville scale than the Demon Red (circa 20-30,000 ("fairly mild") as versus 50,000 ("moderate to hot")), which explains why biting an unripe purple chilli was really not hot at all...
I have planted the two surviving dwindled narcissus bulbs out again (one of the three that I lifted this summer turned out to have been eaten out from the inside and was quite hollow). I found five of them in total, the other two being rotted, and despite emptying out more pots have no idea what happened to the remainder of the original seven, or which was the "one pot with visible bulb foliage in it" back in July :(
I have successfully (I think) finished the manuscript draft of my Red Shoes" fic, after a day or so of fiddling around with the ending to try to give Julian a bit more agency. One of the things that Matthew Bourne got completely wrong about "The Red Shoes", so far as I remember, is that he was presenting it as the story of poor persecuted Vicky suffering at the hands of men, whereas the original story, not being a polemic, gives Julian a narrative and character development of his own rather than just having him symbolise Selfish Love as versus Art (with Art being implied to be the true choice). In fact his plot arc introduces the first scenes and starts before Vicky even enters the film, let alone before she becomes a protagonist -- and a *long* way before the two of them fall in love with one another.
One thing that I did notice about both "The Red Shoes" and "A Matter of Life and Death" is that in both these films Powell & Pressburger -- being men! -- don't appear particularly interested in the 'falling in love' process, but far more interested in the plot potential of 'being in love'. They don't spend their screen time on a prolonged 'will they, won't they' or 'enemies to lovers' process; they pretty much cut straight to 'the characters have already fallen in love off-screen, now what *happens* to them as a result?', which is quite unusual.