Virgers! How are we doing with those explosives?

Mon, 28 May 2012 20:29:53 GMT

Advice on using the London Underground this summer.

I would add, carry a bottle of water at all times, and remember that it can be very hot indeed in the deep tube stations at busy times (not unusual for temperatures to reach the thirties in summer at peak times).

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/629684.html.

What on earth is wrong with Ian Rankin's memory?

Tue, 22 May 2012 13:45:50 GMT

It was fascinating to research the 1980s. I was at university then and thought myself political, yet I had forgotten so much: protests against US missiles on British soil; Greenham Common; animal rights; acid rain; global cooling; Reagan's star wars technology; the threat of nuclear attack; unrest in Ireland;* unrest in Scotland …

Or was he living under a rock? I remember all of that, with minimal prompting (certainly not research), and I was at primary school.

Although I'll admit I don't remember any unrest in Scotland comparable to the Troubles...

* How the hell can you forget the Troubles?

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/628796.html.

Wed, 16 May 2012 19:13:56 GMT

May I point out a rather enjoyable Cabin Pressure apocalypse fic: The End of the World, via Tesco or, as the summary puts it, "Douz II - this time there's zombies."

Quite a lot of gore and angst, but it does feel like what would happen if MJN Air found itself in the midst of a zombie outbreak...

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/627978.html.

Tue, 15 May 2012 10:18:25 GMT

I've just discovered that the Guardian is running a very interesting series of blog posts by Juliet Jacques, a transwoman, on her journey through transition, a transgender journey.

The comments section are actually much better than is generally the case on CiF - there are some eejits (though it seems, for once, to be being fairly rigorously modded), but in general the standard is pretty high and there are more trans* people sharing their experiences.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/627642.html.

Sun, 13 May 2012 13:10:57 GMT

Happy birthday, caulkhead!

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/627045.html.

Motherhood and apple pie.

Fri, 11 May 2012 13:08:05 GMT

The "Junge Union" in Nord-Rhein Westfalen - the youth wing of the CDU, so I suppose roughly equivalent to the Young Conservatives, have a new slogan:

If you love your mother, vote CDU.

I have to say, I can hear the sound of a barrel being scraped...

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/626890.html.

Wed, 09 May 2012 20:09:00 GMT

Dear Word,

thank you so much for unchecking the 'include footnotes' box on the word count. I thought I was done. Actually I'm still 400 words over.

No love,

Me.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/626374.html.

Tue, 08 May 2012 09:43:41 GMT

Happy birthday, white_hart! Have a lovely day!

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/625553.html.

For the stronger we our houses do build,/The less chance we have of being killed

Sat, 05 May 2012 13:56:41 GMT

On the whole I think Thomas Hardy was a fine poet. But I am not convinced at all by "The Convergence of the Twain." You have to be prepared to deal with odd diction if you want to read Hardy, and I actually quite like the last line ("And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres."). It is faintly bathetic - but I think it's a bathos that works.

But the penultimate stanza reads:

Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

And I'm afraid I cannot but think of William McGonagall.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/624582.html.

May be of interest to...

Fri, 04 May 2012 10:22:16 GMT

... anyone who knows Oxford, whether in real life or in books. Or those who enjoy seeing images of the past. Or young men in well cut trousers falling out of punts.

The British Council brings us an archive film on Oxford, from 1941, though it reflects a pre-war world.

Lots of lingering shots of Oxford. And, for some reason, topless economists....

ETA: the other odd thing about that film is that I keep thinking I recognise people in it. Very peculiar!

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/623998.html.

"The greatest cultural extravaganza you could imagine"*

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:00:53 GMT

Apparently there was a Spanish remake of Life on Mars (times adjusted to make it post-Franco). And there may be going to be a Russian one, though I'm not sure I could get enthusiastic about NKVD Komissar Eugene Ochota (excuse Google Translate Russian).

It occurs to me that you could do something very interesting with a German Life on Mars, though. Set it in Berlin. West, because East has the potential for epically dodgy subtexts which are almost as bad as the Life on Mars: Leningrad edition.** You could do loads with a divided city, cut off from the country that surrounds it, from the inevitable "Sam can't quite remember where the wall went jokes" onward...

* For thus David Bowie described West Berlin in the 1970s.
** "Almost" because the Volkspolizei (the "normal" police) were institutionally separate from the Stasi, unlike the situation in the NKVD, but still...

(I've been rewatching LoM. Can you tell?)

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/623074.html.

The AO3 hit count meme.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:43:42 GMT

Some of these are predictable. Some are... more surprising (clearly if I want more hits I should write... baby-fic? Or maybe it's Amanda being awesome).

1. Mother Tongue (723 hits, 17 kudoses (kudos? kudis?), 7 bookmarks). Star Trek (could be either TOS or 2009). In which Amanda pwns disapproving in-laws. I like this ficlet, but it's pure fluff dashed off in a hurry, and I'm rather surprised this is my top fic.

2. And after darkness, light (719 hits, 20 kudi, 10 bookmarks). Narnia. What happens if an Anglo-Catholic decides it would be a good idea to write a Problem of Susan fic. I'm not surprised this one is high-up (despite the possibly off-putting tags, but you can't say they don't warn you what the fic will be like). I think it may be my favourite of my fics, though. I also note that, though more people have _read_ Mother Tongue, more people like this one, as far as one can tell. I think this is fair.

3. In the Files (659 hits, 31 kudi, 3 bookmarks). Deep Space Nine. Behold the awesome power of Yuletide, for this was only written this Christmas. I'm fond of it - I wanted to look at mothers and daughters and the competing claims of various duties, and I also wanted to write something that you can imagine working as an episode (though of course it would need a lot more complications, and a B storyline. Also, I have a suspicion people are more generous with the kudos button at Yuletide.

4. Trailing at some distance, Tell Beauty How She Blasteth (429 hits, 10 kudi, 2 bookmarks). Wimseyverse. AU-fic of doom, which is the most depressing thing I have ever written. This was fairly widely recced at the time (including on TV Tropes), but it was posted on LJ long before I posted it at the AO3, so I strongly suspect that this is actually my most recced fic over all. I also think it's one of my best.

5.In Search of a Big Picture. (375 hits, 18 kudi, 1 bookmark). Vorkosiverse. This one was fun to write, but I can only attribute its popularity (it's a drabble!) to the fact that the Vorkosiverse is a small fandom which is very active on the AO3

And I note that all bar one of my top five fics are female-centric. I find this cheering.

6. Putting on Civvies. (367 hits, 6 kudi, 5 bookmarks). ST: 2009. Pure fluff, with a bit of linguistics geekery, in particular my fascination with the curious use of the Quaker Thou in Amok Time. A sweet little fic, in its way.

7. The Exercise of Virtue. (321 hits, 9 kudi, 3 bookmarks). Bible (NT). Actually I think this is the weakest of my three NT fics, but it continues a pattern of my female-centric fics doing best. I also suspect a pattern where people are more generous with kudos in small fandoms.

8. A Child of Our Time. (290 hits, 17 kudos, 2 bookmarks). Doctor Who. Another one I just dashed off: a timey-wimey origin for Susan. Fairly good idea, wish I'd been able to think of more than a fragment...

9. Some Secrets in a Privacy Forever Ours. (279 hits, 7 kudi, 3 bookmarks). Bible (NT). This one is my favourite Bible fic.

10. Just Good Friends. (278 hits, 3 kudi, 1 bookmark). Star Trek: 2009. More pre-ship Spock/Uhura.

Honourable mention for the great achievement of fic no. 12, Like a Thief in the Night - another undoubted beneficiary of the Yuletide Effect - since it was only published last Christmas, and I am the only person in the world who writes Rev fanfic (NB I would be very happy to be proved wrong).

Do I know what to make of this? No, I don't, other than that I am not and never will be a BNF (but then I don't want to be). Interesting that it tends to be the fic with women at the centre that do well, though.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/622337.html.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:00:23 GMT

Happy birthday, !

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:45:36 GMT

I really hate the sort of dreams where your teeth fall into bits.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/622303.html.

More on same-sex marriage

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:28:32 GMT

The text of a letter to the Times supporting gay marriage:

... We welcome current moves by the House of Bishops to consider again its view of civil partnerships and human sexuality. We hope this will lead to a recognition of God’s grace at work in same-sex partnerships and call on the Church to engage in theological discussion and prayerful reflection on the nature of marriage.

We also welcome recent reported statements by the Bishop of Salisbury and the new Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral calling on the Church to affirm same-sex couples who want to take on the commitment of marriage.

It is our belief that the Church of England has nothing to fear from the introduction of civil marriage for same-sex couples. It will be for the churches to then decide how they should respond pastorally to such a change in the law.

Signatories include the Bishop of Buckingham, the Very Rev'd Jeffery John, Dean of St Albans, and some more deans and some retired bishops.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/621755.html.

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:30:32 GMT

The Bishop of Buckingham (or @alantlwilson as he is known elsewhere) on gay marriage:

I am Evangelical enough to believe that Christ is, in fact, risen and we are, actually, his body in the world, charged in Matthew 28 to be good news to the whole creation, by observing his commands. He didn't say “keep everything the same” let alone “suppress gays.” He did say “Love your neighbour as yourself” and “Judge not that ye be not judged.” He did say “take the beam out of your eye before you try and remove the mote from someone else's” and “Love as I have loved you.”

Is there anything unclear about any of that? I don't think so.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/620893.html.

Archbishop Barry Morgan on why the church needs to think about gay marriage

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:06:41 GMT

This short address by the Archbishop of Wales is the most encouraging take on the subject I've heard from a senior British Anglican (not my branch of the Communion, but it's something that our neighbours have more sense). He's trying to start an honest debate on how the church should respond to the institution of civil partnerships and possibly same-sex civil marriage, and identifies as the key question

how do we hold together faithfulness to Scripture and tradition with the wider New Testament call to love our neighbour?

And his final paragraph makes it fairly clear where his sympathies lie:

The question then as now is, will the church protect and support pastorally, faithful, stable, lifelong relationships of whatever kind in order to encourage human values such as love and fidelity and recognise the need in Christian people for some public religious support. As Helen says in the novel "Nightwatch" by Sarah Walters – a novel written in 1947, "what could she do to say to the world that Julia was hers?" She could have gone on to ask "what can the church do to show that this relationship is not simply something between my partner and I but that somehow God is in our midst as well and longs for our wellbeing". It is a discussion we need to have.

It's slightly embarrassing - though a compliment to Sarah Walters - that he thinks "Nightwatch" is from 1947, but that's a minor point, and I am happy that ++Barry has set out the terms of debate in the way he has.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/620288.html.

Childhood meme

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:48:29 GMT

Embolden the ones you did before you were 11 ¾ (as far as you can remember!)
Italicise the ones you have done since then.

In passing, I detect a definite southern-centricity to these questions.

1. Climb a tree - Um. Sort of. I never got very far....

2. Roll down a really big hill Well. Assuming that we mean by this "hills I thought were really big when I was seven...

3. Camp out in the wild I'd been camping with the Guides - just - by that stage, but only to the county campsite, though as they'd been running cattle on it the week before county camp, I still managed to come home with huge infected horsefly bites, which I remember as one of the most disgusting moments of my childhood. Nevertheless, I was not put off camping, though I was a student before any wild camping actually happened (I never did the Duke of Edinburgh award, because it was sold to us on the basis of "This will look good on your CV!")

4. Build a den. No, unless we're counting blanket forts, or the shelter I made for the Brownie "Survival in the Wild" badge...

5. Skim a stone. Not that I can do so reliably

6. Run around in the rain Look, I went to school in Scotland, what do you think? I can't say I remember it with joyous fondness, though.

7. Fly a kite

8. Catch a fish with a net. No. Any amount of water beetles/ pondskaters etc, and tadpoles in a jar. (I always put them back, though).

9. Eat an apple straight from a tree. No. The furthest south I regularly played outside as a child was Westmoreland, and while there were apples, they were crabs, and I wasn't completely daft.

10. Play conkers

11. Throw some snow

12. Hunt for treasure on the beach

13. Make a mud pie

14. Dam a stream

15. Go sledging Best thing ever

16. Bury someone in the sand - my parents refused to co-operate in that sort of thing....

17. Set up a snail race - No. I had lots of books and therefore was not terminally bored.

18. Balance on a fallen tree - Yes. Badly.

19. Swing on a rope swing Oh yes. It was my favourite place to sit and read.

20. Make a mud slide. No, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have seen the appeal.

21. Eat blackberries growing in the wild. Yes, lots, although usually this was in the context of brambling expeditions for jam, and the amount I could eat before someone said "in the tub, not your mouth!" was strictly limited.

22. Take a look inside a tree

23. Visit an island

24. Feel like you're flying in the wind

25. Make a grass trumpet - well, tried it, and failed every time, however often Granddad demonstrated it. God did not intend me for an oboeist.

26. Hunt for fossils and bones. I wasn't keen on collecting bones, but I had a collection of fossils displayed in cardboard boxes with lovingly written labels, some of which were even accurate.

27. Watch the sun wake up - As I said above, I grew up in Scotland. In January, the sun rises at about quarter to nine. Of course I saw the sun rise. I sometimes went to school before the sun had risen and, once I was at secondary school, came back as it was setting. Again, not a joyous aspect of childhood. There are few things more gloomy than spending all the hours of daylight in school.

28. Climb a huge hill

29. Get behind a waterfall

30. Feed a bird from your hand

31. Hunt for bugs

32. Find some frogspawn

33. Catch a butterfly in a net - I was always afraid I'd damage them. I'd keep very still and hope they'd land on me, instead (sometimes this even worked).

34. Track wild animals Well, if we mean, look for tracks of deer and rabbits, yes. I also recall several attempts to sneak up close enough to a squirrel to get a really good photograph. This never worked.

35. Discover what's in a pond

36. Call an owl If you mean 'call like an owl', then I must admit that, like Peggy Blackett, they always came out like ducks.

37. Check out the crazy creatures in a rock pool Crazy?

38. Bring up a butterfly

39. Catch a crab - neither in the literal or rowing related sense, though I have done the latter since.

40. Go on a nature walk at night

41. Plant it, grow it, eat it Although it was only cress. I helped plant and harvest peas and beans and potatoes in the garden, but that was really my parents' initiative, so probably shouldn't count.

42. Go wild swimming

43. Go rafting

44. Light a fire without matches

45. Find your way with a map and compass Although only under parental supervision, and to be honest, always in circumstances where, if you could read the map, you didn't actually need the compass.

46. Try bouldering

47. Cook on a campfire

48. Try abseiling

49. Find a geocache - did they even exist when I was 11? I'd never heard of it if they did.

50. Canoe down a river

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/619437.html.

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 20:35:12 GMT

Happy Easter to all those celebrating - Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/618618.html.

Poem for Good Friday

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:59:26 GMT

In A Country Church

To one kneeling down no word came,
only the wind’s song, saddening the lips
of the grave saints, rigid in glass;
Or the dry whisper of unseen wings,
bats not angels, in the high roof.
Was he balked by silence? He kneeled long,
and saw love in a dark crown
of thorns blazing and a winter tree
golden with fruit of a man’s body.

R.S. Thomas.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/618024.html.

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:40:12 GMT

This sounds like a Cabin Pressure plot waiting to happen, doesn't it?

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/617924.html.

Wikipedia sentences over which to boggle:

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:22:10 GMT

Other notable figures with an enthusiasm for Machen have included Brocard Sewell, Barry Humphries, Stewart Lee and Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. Wikipedia: Arthur Machen.

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/617659.html.

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:40:40 GMT

OK, here's a weird DW issue.

Reading my flist, I am able to see a flocked post by a friend which contains a cut. However, if I try to click on the cut, or to comment, I get the protected content notice. How's that possible?

(I'm not objecting to not being on someone's filter, incidentally, which I assume is part of the issue, it just strikes me as strange that I can see part of the post but not all of it).

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/616829.html.

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 13:01:12 GMT

Why on earth would you want to identify with Dora Spenlow?

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/615272.html.

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:57:40 GMT

Am I brave enough for this pattern? ETA: The alternative is Haruni, but I think that is too difficult, especially as I have no idea about provisional cast ons.

(Also, I need a knitting icon...

Crossposted from http://tree-and-leaf.dreamwidth.org/614597.html.