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Mark asks…
Can you find me a nice Duvet set?
I need a nice duvet set – ideally with co-ordinating curtains.
I like modern neutral. Its for our spare room.
X
Sorry I forgot to say UK based please…. and links would be good to get you to win the points! 
Aaron answers:
Try Matalan – reasonable products and not that expensive
http://www.matalan.co.uk/pages/homeware
at the upper end of the market there is BHS and Marks and Spencer,
Next etc.
Here’s another http://www.linen4less.co.uk/prodpage.asp?productid=555
not that many that actually have the curtains to match on the same pages and the duvet sets
George asks…
I want original ideas for super decorating…?
The theme is mid century modern train station. I have the seating, lighting, curtains, artwork, tile, rugs, and storage. Some of my lighting is ambient, two hanging.
It’s a basement karaoke, stage area.
Colors, mustard, black, red, golden, beige.
Can you think of anything I left out?
Aaron answers:
Maybe put in a faux ticket window
and a hat rack with a conductors cap on it.
And also a vintage cigar and cigarette tray..you know the kind that could be worn around the neck..bring in some things reminiscent of the 40′s speak easy…
John asks…
The Globe theater resembled?
a) a “wooden O”
b) a Roman theater
c) a baseball stadium
d)a modern curtained stage
Aaron answers:
Seriously, most of this is easily answered by google searches, wikipedia, or–I don’t know–reading your book yourself.
You could have found the answer a dozen times over in Google in the time it took you just to type out the question on here.
Why don’t you just do your own homework instead of asking strangers online to do it for you?
Lisa asks…
How to make my room more gothic?
Okay, so Im goth, and I kind of want my room to look goth, too. Im REALLY limited though. I have a small room, which I share with my little sister, but shes too young to really care how I decorate our room. Eventually, we’re going to build onto our house so I can have my own room, but thats not going to be for a long time, so yeah. The walls are white, and Im not allowed to paint them, until I get my own room. Theres also the problem of the furniture. My bed, dresser, and the little bed side table thingy are all dark wood, and the little table thingy and the dresser look pretty antique and “gothic”. But my desk and bookshelf are really pale wood, and my chair is white, and they all look somewhat modern. My curtains are these dark purple beaded down to the floor curtains, so when the lights are dim, the whole room looks purple, which I like a lot.
But I have like no money to buy new things, so do you have any do it yourself ideas to make my room more gothic? Particularly, how to make little accessories that I can put on my dresser and desk and stuff?
Aaron answers:
If you can pull together 10 bucks or so you can go to the dollar store and buy black iron looking candle holder and white candles, skulls (whatever your into) and u could cover the surface of your furniture in a dark cloth as well. The dollar store is already putting things out for halloween, you might find something interesting. That’s just a start.
Ps: don’t burn the candles unless you have permission, ok.
Robert asks…
i have no idea what this poem is trying to say, please could some one translate this poem into modern English?
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at her? I said
“Fra Pandolf” by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, ’twas not
Her husband’s presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf chanced to say “Her mantle laps
Over my lady’s wrist too much,” or “Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half-flush that dies along her throat”: such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had
A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked
Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked
My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame
This sort of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will
Quite clear to such an one, and say, “Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”—and if she let
Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
—E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll meet
The company below, then. I repeat,
The Count your master’s known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter’s self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
Aaron answers:
In this poem Browning develops an idiolect for Ferrara. Unlike poets like Gray and Keats, Browning does not write as himself, for example, by echoing the work of other poets, because to do so would be untrue to the Duke’s character. Ferrara betrays his obsessions by nervous mannerisms. He repeats words associated with the Duchess: the phrases `as if … Alive” (2, 47), `there she stands’ (4, 46), `Will ‘t please you’ (5, 47), and `called/calling … That spot of joy’ (14-15, 21), `look,’ variously inflected (2, 5, 24), `glance’ (8, 12), `thanked’ (31), `gift’ (33-34), `stoop’ (34, 42-43), `smile’ (43, 45-46), and `pass’ (44). These tics define his idiolect but also his mind, circling back to the same topic again and again. He takes pride in saying, “I repeat” (48). He also obsesses about his height, relative to others. He stands because the Duchess stands on the wall, and he requires his listener to sit, to rise, and to walk downstairs with him side-by-side. He abhors stooping because he would lose face. Last, Ferrara needs to control the eyes of others. He curtains off the Duchess’ portrait to prevent her from looking “everywhere.” He tells his listener to look at her and to “Notice Neptune.”
We always drop unprepared into a Browning dramatic monologue, into several lives about which we know nothing. Soliloquies or speeches in a play have a context that orients the audience. Browning’s readers have only a title and, in “My Last Duchess,” a speech prefix, “Ferrara.” Yet these are transfixing clues to a drama that we observe, helplessly, unable to speak or to act, as if we turned on a radio and, having selected a frequency, overhear a very private conversation, already in process and, as we may come very gradually to appreciate, about a murder and the maybe-killer’s search for the next victim. Readers familiar with Browning’s writing and sensitive to nuance perceive the speaker’s pride and cold-bloodedness. Many miss the point and are astonished. “You say what? There’s nothing in the poem about him killing her! Where do you find that?” A century and more ago, when Browning still lived, readers presented him with questions about this poem. He answered them cautiously, almost as if he had not written the poem but was seeing it himself, attentively, after a very long time and was trying to understand what had happened.
Good luck
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