The Sound and the Fury

Hey, 2009. Time to leave, yet?

2009-12-22T02:35:08Z

I bought a (frozen) Canadian lobster from the supermarket today, for £4. It's sitting in my fridge and I am awake at 2am* wondering what to do with it tomorrow. I feel like I should cook something special, but don't want lobster thermidor. It's freezing, so no lobster salad. I don't have sushi rice. My life is hard.

I feel like the best thing to do would be some baked potatoes or loaded skins, lobster and corn on the cob. I don't think I have corn on the cob and am not going anywhere until Christmas because of that absolutely terrifying black ice on the roads, so I may end up having it with, er, baked beans or something. Ah, well. £4.

In other news, am attempting to write more and kind of winning, except for IRL daring to trespass on my dreamytimes. How very dare it? I have a project coming up to try and aid My Great 2010 American Trip but that's in the air until the beginning of January, I think.

Quick meme, ganked from wiebke :

List the towns or cities where you spent at least a night away from home during 2009. Mark with a star if you had multiple non-consecutive stays.

Rome, Italy
Tunis, Tunisia
Zakynthos, Greece*
Athens, Greece
Amsterdam, Netherlands*
Andorra la Vella, Andorra
Messina, Sicily, Italy
Sitges, Spain*
Scarborough, England
London, England
Cork, Ireland

Ho hum. Hurry up, Christmas. :D

*Not losing sleep because of lobster. My internal clock has decided that I am nocturnal.

Let me tell you, internets

2009-12-17T01:42:23Z

Should Homosexuals Face Execution?

Seriously, BBC? Seriously?

Okay, let me explain this one. The BBC's debate board - Have Your Say - is infamously full of the biggest nutters you will ever find on the internet. You will find more absurd bigotry there than even in the Daily Mail site. There is even a website dedicated to collecting the best examples of stupidity on those boards:

The Destruction of the Iron Curtain was just another step in Germany’s march to win, by peace, that which it could not win by warfare.
-Atom John, Derby, United Kingdom

So the BBC has to be very circumspect and phrase questions as gently as possible. They try, on the whole, to avoid serious political debate and instead ask for opinions on the smoking ban, or if gnomes are too provactive. People have complained over the lack of serious debate at Have Your Say.

So the BBC attempts serious debate. By asking if gay people should be killed. (Note - after the backlash on this one, they have changed the title, after several hours.) I just... what? This topic was brought about by the dilemma in Uganda at the moment, but there are a thousand better ways to try and engage debate about this issue rather than making it seem like murdering someone is a viable debate! I would love to know if they are going to ask if Jews should be killed or women stoned to death in future debates.

Granted, the BBC article did not go on with Fox-esque hate speech: it actually attempted serious debate and tried to address the fact that people are facing death over prejudice in Uganda. However, of over 600 comments submitted, only 200 were actually sane enough to be published. This was Have Your Say, after all, and the goons read the inflammatory title, logged in and started hammering away at their keyboards. It must have been like all their Christmases had come at once!

Look, I completely agree that a) we cannot force change on Africa and that we should not enforce our own way of thinking on other people - education is the way to go - and b) that this is, therefore, something that needs to be debated and must be constantly questioned so that people can engage rather than give way to ignorance and hatred, but the stupid, stupid phrasing of the question doesn't help. To add insult to injury, the BBC insists that they thought 'long and hard' about whether to publish this question. Strangely enough, once people reacted, they decided that maybe it wasn't worded in a good way. Long and hard questioning, hey?

The British media has picked up on this. Generally, the response is something along the lines of 'WAT!'

In case you think this may be an overreaction, here is a comment from one of the people who complained at the BBC website:

Thanks to the BBC's inappropriate use of the title of its debate "Should homosexuals face execution?" I faced my office debating my right to exist because of my sexuality and was subjected to homophobia as a direct result of the have your say debate.

Tomorrow I will hand in my notice as I cannot work in a environment where I am not considered worthy to exist. I have reported the BBC to my local police LGBT officer as I feel the BBC have committed the offence of insightment to homophobic hatred.

The BBC published that headline on its site as it knew it would get lots of comments it did not care about the content. Most of the people who posted never read past the title before they commented. I believe the BBC spectacularly failed to protect LGBT people and instead of issuing an unreserved an apology it has dug in its heels and added insult to injury.

Why should I pay my TV licence for the BBC to subject me to homophobia?

I am so angry with the fucking BBC right now. Not to sound like a Have Your Say twat, but our licence money is being spent on this?

BLANCHE D:

2009-12-02T20:04:04Z

Oh, damn you, 2009! >:O

RIP Maggie Jones. You were the very, very best thing about Coronation Street. ;_;

Writer's Block: Book review

2009-11-18T17:57:45Z

What (if any) books would you ban from a high school library? Are there certain subjects that you feel are inappropriate for teenagers regardless of literary merit?

View Answers

Infuriating question.

There are a lot of books I dislike and would prefer never to have existed, but it's entirely up to people if they want to be daft enough to read something bad. Who are we to censor other people? There are a lot of hateful texts out there, but if you read Mein Kampf and decide that you now hate Jews, the problem lies with you yourself.

11th day of the 11th month

2009-11-11T13:35:24Z

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave once her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven

I'm not one for jingoism and the line under an English heaven makes me cringe a little. Furthermore, it's an obvious poem to use today.

However, the news has just reported on the five young soldiers murdered by their Afghan colleague, their bodies repatriated to the UK today. I can't begin to imagine the grief and the rage of their families, directed at the government as much as the cowardly murderer, or the pain of the lady who received an insulting missive from Gordon Brown wherein he mispelled her dead son's name. Or the families of those lost in World War I, World War II, and every conflict thereafter. The necessity and the legality of any of these wars can be argued against, but while politicians play with lives as if they were the Olympian gods, the soldiers give their own lives in earnest.

For all those who have gasped their last in some foreign field, or for those soldiers who have fought and given everything they can, thank you.

Meme

2009-11-09T14:25:14Z

Ganked from that vagabond mothergoddamn

T
The concept is simple.

Comment to this entry with a '_____ or ______?' question. You don't have to use any of the examples in the .gif above (in fact, that might be quite boring). Well, you could I guess if you really wanted to. I'll reply with an answer and maybe a short explanation if I feel like it. Post this on your own journal and see what people ask you.

The dog beater

2009-11-08T16:37:43Z

So mothergoddamnis currently at my house and has finally forced me into catching up with Dexter.

I can't reveal who is the cause of my broken heart in this programme, on threat of violence*, but I did spend last night berating her for promising me a much-loved character didn't come to a sticky end... only for them to indeed come to a sticky end. My heart is broken into tiny, tiny fragments of bitter shards and I am ashamed to say that I have randomly interjected conversations today with, '********* is dead!'

I don't know if I can carry on, though I guess I am as we've just downloaded the next episode.

Finally also watched Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, which is handy as I now understand the macros I've seen floating around on drama communities for that film. Very funny and good to see Val Kilmer not being annoying.

*Srsly. She hit my dog. My twelve-year-old, disabled, dog. Who was crying a little from arthritic trouble. She. Hit. My. Dog. The icon in this post is Amy After the Event, looking perplexed and suitably beaten.

(Put down the pitchforks; it was more a flying TV remote accident, followed by profuse apologies to dog in question and accusing stare from dog.)

Other than that, a fine lazy TV-catch-up Sunday. With a roast dinner, oh yes.

Bleurgh

2009-10-25T19:43:39Z

Sheesh. The first thing I'm going to do when back in England is run and hug the cooker (sorry, dogs). How have I survived for so long without an oven? If I never have rice-with-chickpeas or pasta ever again, it'll be too soon.

In further news, my mum is so cute! She 'phoned me, all excited, to tell me that she had signed up with TalkTalk to get a router/the internets put in the house for me, so we should be switched on within the week. Huzzah!

She discovered Skype a few weeks ago and keeps asking me if I've ever heard of this 'thing' where 'the computer becomes a phone'. I owe her a demo for this favour.

Reading catch-up

2009-10-16T16:12:04Z

I've done a lot of reading lately. These are the books I can remember:

The Magic Toyshop - Angela Carter
I picked this up because the blurb didn't make any sense whatsoever. Once again, Carter does it. She had such a way of turning the most mundane, everyday things into something wondorous and magical. The story is of three children leading comfortable, happy lives who are orphaned. They have to go and stay with their tyrannical and imposing uncle in London, who enjoys stifling the life out of everything around him, preferring his malleable puppets in the toyshop. However, his Irish wife and her two brothers who live with him have their own sadness and wish to escape his clutches.

I can't say much more without spoiling the plot, but I loved this book for its suspense and tenderness. Carter was such an amazing writer. She admired Anne Rice and wished she could have written like her. Oh, the irony.

Engleby - Sebastian Faulks
At first, I was very, very pleased with this book. Why? Because we had a working-class character who was at a prestigious university on merit, who wasn't stupid, who didn't have a thick accent, who wasn't traumatised by his humble upbringing, who wasn't an annoying attempt by the middle-class author to give his book some realism.

But of course, Engleby has to have a big problem. Of course. I can't go into it because it's part of the twist, but sheesh! Is it ever, ever going to be possible to have a well-adjusted, clever and well-spoken working-class character in British fiction? EVER? I swear, they do exist!

The story was all right, but this tired trope really ruined the book for me.

My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time - Liz Jensen
This was such a fun book! I was unimpressed when a friend with a penchant for chicklit offered it to me, but I had once again run out of English reading material, so gave it a go. And I'm so glad that I did.

The story centres around a prostitute in fin-de-siecle Denmark, Charlotte, who tries all kinds of wiles to get money for herself and her 'mother', a deeply stupid and uncouth woman who follows her around. I was rather shocked at the beginning, because the character is so frank about prostitution and doesn't care when people call her a two-bit strumpet.

She ends up working in a grand old house for a nasty widow who is guarding a secret. Anyway, her natural curiosity gets the best of her and she's transported to 21st-century London, with her mother in tow. This is handled brilliantly, with acerbic comments on modern rituals - this has, of course, been done many times before, but it's the humour that got me. Whilst Charlotte adapts quickly to the 21st century and uses her 19th century wiles to her advantage, her mother becomes obsessed with microwave meals and the vacuum cleaner.

Anyway, there then follows a lot of love trouble, a trip to modern Denmark and the plight of an entire group of Danish time-travellers, and it's great. I just found the book witty, frank and funny and will definitely check out more from this author.

To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Okay, so everyone and their dog has read this book, but I haven't read it since I was eleven years old, when my dad gave me it. I'm pleased at young me for catching so many of the themes and so much symbolism first time around. This time, however, I was moved to tears by it. And yet, still, it's not a depressing or tedious read, but there are moments of real affection and great characterisation. Unlike Capote (it fascinates me that Lee and Capote were best friends and yet they come across so differently in writing), Lee gives even the most annoying or despicable characters elements of goodness. Such a deserved classic.

Other Voices, Other Rooms - Truman Capote
I really disliked this book. I just can't get into Capote's writing, at all. I don't like his narrative detachment, nor the way he turns a lot of people into nothing more than dislikeable caricatures.

I tried reading Breakfast at Tiffany's a few years ago and wondered at how charmless it was (so much so that I put off seeing the film for a long time). I lost that book* before I could finish out, so don't know if it was worth reading or not. This one wasn't.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories - Tolstoy
You know, I adore the short story format. I think that it can be a near-perfect medium, and when it's done well, it can beat the novel, through the sheer expertise used to get the plot and characters and theme so neatly into such a short space.

And then I realised: I can count, on the fingers of one hand, the short stories that I have really enjoyed, that I feel have pushed the boat out. And none of them were in this collection. I give up, Tolstoy. I give up.

An Atlas of Impossible Longing - Anuradha Roy
I love Indian fiction and this book is a well-written and entertaining story of thwarted love and Indian culture in general, as well as some illuminating history on the India-Pakistan split. At times, it almost veers into Kite Runner territory, which was such a stupid book with coincidence after coincidence and manipulative over-emoting, but thankfully, it manages to stay on track for the most part.

I can't sum it up completely, though. I lost this book on the metro* three-quarters of the way through.

Birds Without Wings - Louis de Bernieres
Hannah recommended this one to me. I love Louis de Bernieres' writing, and once again lapped up that magic realism, knowing that after I made it past the first 150 pages, there would be ugly and horrible stuff happening.

This one is based on that ever-festering Greek/Turk wound, this opening from the first world war. I learned more about this in the book referenced below and can barely read the history of it, let alone the fictionalised account of all that suffering and the evil, evil things people did to each other at that time.

Anyway, I lost this book on a park bench*, so I never made it past that 150-page mark. And in my mind, all the characters lived happily ever after.

World War One: A Short History - Norman Stone
Uhmazing book. This is all I wanted from a book giving an overview of the First World War. There are fascinating facts, but also a coldly modern analysis of the stupidity and shortcomings that resulted in this bloody spectacle, as well as a lot of information on aspects of the world war that may not be so familiar to a British reader (Gallipoli, for example). I gaped at the sheer folly of this 'experiment' that erupted so brutally and am thankful that it was blessedly free of jingoistic rhetoric.

One thing about the First World War which endlessly fascinates me is that of its role as a catalyst for social change. You had Russians marching into battle with sabres, on horseback; Italians who had previously only worked in fields, who were barely literate, forced to march on and on by a cruel general; lords having to go to war, dying there and their estates broken up and the working and middle-classes finally breaking free of the chains around them. This book, whilst it could not be comprehensive, offers a good analysis of this. It also gives time to Mexico and Japan, often overlooked in analysis of this time. The epilogue, which details the crushing reparations enforced upon Germany and the festering hatred across Europe (and indeed the world) in the wake of this conflict, which paved the way for World War II, is worth the price of the book alone. Great stuff. I'll definitely re-read.

*Er, I lose books on an alarmingly regular basis. It is most frustrating.

rebness @ 2009-09-26T16:36:00

2009-09-26T14:38:59Z

WOW! I need to go back to Ciutadella park tomorrow and remember to actually bring my camera this time. There's an Asian cultural festival on there over this week, with the most amazing cuisines from all over (Tibetan, Japanese, Pakistani, etc.) and random guys on bikes playing instruments and giant inflatable dragons and...eggs? And stuff. Really great stuff - this city does festivals so well. I am stuffed and happy. :D

Tonight, there are free concerts for the Merce festival in the city, so I'm popping along to them. Camera? Packed.

Random

2009-09-22T21:19:31Z

I was preparing dinner with Hannah on Sunday when she remarked (after a particularly inflection-heavy rant on Catalan people) that I am 'more Scouse than ever'. Readers, I am perplexed: I know one Scouser (Liverpudlian to some of you) in the whole of this city and rarely see him. I had hoped that working with ze French and der Germans and that sexy smooth Italian guy each day might imbibe me with some Continental je ne sais quoi, but alas! Scouse I remain.

I have so much to tell you, LJ. Except that it's all very dramatic and quite irritating, so instead I hope to post about the countless wonderful (and few rubbish) books I have devoured of late. Tomorrow, perhaps.

There's little else worthwhile to report. The Merce festival is coming up this week, though! The Hives are the headline band for this year, so there will be a report on them this Saturday. Or Sunday, when sober, whichevs.

Here, have some Scouseness:

In other news, I am experimenting with my home phone to see how long it will work if not placed on the handset. Five nights and counting!

Sharing is caring, or something

2009-09-06T22:23:27Z

Ganked from

mothergoddamn

sharing is caring:
for one week, recommend / share:
Day 1: A song - Malaguena Salerosa - Chingon, Tenia Tanto Que Darte - Nena Daconte, Ocean and a Rock - Lisa Hannigan
Day 2: a picture
Day 3: a book/ebook/fanfic
Day 4: a site
Day 5: a youtube clip
Day 6: a quote
Day 7: whatever tickles your fancy

I couldn't choose which of these three songs I'm currently loving to plaster up here, so I'm going to be greedy and post all of them:

Tenia Tanto Que Darte is an infectiously happy-sounding song that I've been catching on Spanish radio for months on end. I finally downloaded it and was taken aback by the not-so-cosy lyrics: I had so much to give you, so many things to tell you, I had so much love saved for you. Bleurgh, get over him!

Except the story is that these lyrics are about the singer's miscarriage, adding poignancy to the sunny voice which promises 'to light a candle on your special day' and who promises 'never to forget'. Lovely song.

Ocean and a Rock, by Lisa Hannigan, is the soundtrack to the gentle and moving LGBT advert advocating gay marriage for Ireland (thanks for the original link, gairid). I really recommend watching the advert and then listening to this beautiful song.

This version of Malaguena Salerosais one of many, many takes on this classic song, this time by Robert Rodriguez's band, Chingon. It's played at the end of Kill Bill and I have danced to it countless times on the terrace this summer. And, um, on that snooty cruise.

Begorrah

2009-08-25T07:58:50Z

The temperature in Barcelona was approaching 40c on Friday, which shouldn't be all that bad for a Mediterranean city with ample air conditioning right next to the sea, but what do you know? It's humid, sweaty hell.

At the moment, I am in Cork! It is all Irish and awesome. I am working from my B&B room (we can't travel in luxury all the time, darlings), but shall have to go down to breakfast soon, for I can smell Irish breakfasty goodness.

I really like it here - it's all green and lovely and cold. I even had to wear a coat yesterday! Exciting times. The people are also really nice, really funny. I got chatted up in the pub last night, even though there were inevitable commiserations on my being English.

Sorry, I meant to say more, but... the smell of that bacon, you know...

Writer's Block: Pecking Order

2009-08-19T16:22:20Z

Are you an oldest, youngest, middle, or only child? How do you think it has influenced your personality?

View 538 Answers

Middle, not counting my idiot half-brother and half-sister in their forties who have more issues than The Times.

I've always been the classic middle child; the peacemaker, the one always too old or too young to do what my brothers and sisters were doing; the one caught between wanting to act silly with the younger ones, or mature with the olders ones. The one... um, in the middle. I have four full siblings - an older brother (Paul), an older sister (Jennifer), a younger brother (Adam) and a younger sister (Rachael), so I know what it's like to have all four types. It sort of worked to my advantage to be the middle child at one point, because my mum used to preface everything with, 'Poor Becky never gets anything, being the middle child...' so I'd get the extra ice-cream, or the first go of a new toy, much to the rage of my siblings.

My elder siblings are, strangely enough, quite gentle and less headstrong than the younger ones, so I never really was subjected to older sibling tyranny. I did, however, boss the younger two around and probably still do.

NHS = doubleplusbad

2009-08-13T10:54:38Z

Something alarming happened this week, something which has the British media up in arms. Our special friends, our close cousins across the Atlantic, decided that we run an ‘evil’ and ‘Orwellian’ state. The focus of their ire? Our very own NHS.

Brits were baffled. People were genuinely mystified, even hurt, that (some) Americans had turned on us so quickly. The British embassy said that it would ‘quietly correct erroneous reporting’, which came as little comfort. And then came the anger: the Twitter # tags. (welovetheNHS!), Facebook groups, newspaper debates, blogs, the repelling of wankerface Tories trying to paint our healthcare as woefully inadequate. Why would Americans believe this claptrap, people ask?

Of course, very few Americans believe this rubbish. You Americans here on my LJ are my friends because you’re not these hatred-spewing, fact-phobic imbeciles. And if you do have quibbles about socialised healthcare, you debate it. You don't Godwin yourself by comparing Obama to Hitler. However, I am going to write about this and set some things straight because it’s the right thing to do. I am not debating the ins and outs of Obama's healthcare plan (because in truth, I don't know the ins and outs of it), but what I will do is explain Why The NHS is Not a Bad Thing.

First off: prescriptions on the NHS. All prescriptions are at a set price, which admittedly can sometimes work against you (your chemist will usually advise if buying over the counter is cheaper). The set price is ₤7.20 per item in England, ₤4 in Scotland. You pay this for anything from an inhaler to medicine for the most rare conditions. In Wales, by the way, prescriptions cost a big fat 0.

But what about the cost to the NHS itself? Drugs companies certainly don’t charge them ₤0 for their precious pills. Being a nosy sort, I used to enjoy flicking through the drugs index on idle afternoons whilst working at the Mental Health Unit. I remember how surprised I was when I saw the price listings for a 28-day course of something such as Paroxetine: over ₤300. That’s ₤293 cost absorbed by the NHS each month you are on those pills, the full ₤300 if you’re on low income or unemployed. Or Welsh.

This is socialised healthcare.

I have no time for the drugs companies and their strangehold upon healthcare. When I was working in the...*shudder* bowel clinic, the secretaries there talked excitedly of Friday lunch. Friday lunch was laid on by a drugs company every single week – an ostentatious buffet on hospital grounds to say ‘thank you’ and build up a partnership with the consultants. The one I worked for would pointedly refuse to even enter the room during that hour, every week. He would not be bought. He would not be bribed. He would not put his own personal interests (and wealth) above the care of his patients.

This is socialised healthcare.

But what about Spain? Well, Spanish healthcare is ranked higher in WHO than the UK and the US. Let me tell you about it: I take Omeprazole (at 2 euros for a month’s supply!) for chronic acid reflux. One fine day a few months ago, I get to work and vomit blood. I go to the doctor that morning (I am seen within the hour, for free). I am referred to the hospital and sent to triage (free). I have bloods taken (free), x-rays (free), a gastroscopy (free) and I am given a written report (free) and medicines (free!)

This was at a time when I had been very silly with money and didn’t have much in the bank. I would not have been able to be seen even if the cost were 50 euros.

There was a very sick American girl I talked with there (they gave a tentative diagnosis of Crohn’s) who panicked throughout because she was having all these tests, consultations and was being prescribed medicine, but of course she wasn’t a Spanish resident and didn’t have European health insurance. Perhaps she should just forget the treatment and get a flight home to America so she’d be covered by her insurance there?

No need to panic; she paid fourteen euros. She was disbelieving: ‘It would cost me more to be seen at home!’

What is the alternative? Refuse care to her on the grounds of money? The consultants were not interested in her nationality; they rushed her through because they were concerned at her tests.

This is social healthcare.

Back in 2006, my father suffered his first major illness – a stroke. My mum phoned me at work (which just happened to be the hospital where he was admitted) and told me he had fallen and had been taken by ambulance to the hospital. I tore down the stairs and into A&E (ER for Americans) where he was being treated. The care was compassionate, quick, understanding. I was a nervous wreck, my sister crying, my father scared. There was no third-world pushing him to the back of the queue. There was no refusal to treat a pensioner on the grounds that it would cost the NHS too much.

When he was diagnosed with cancer, the consultant asked for us to come in and see him. My family were taken to a private room and had the news broken gently to us. The consultant told us how sorry he was, that he was there to answer any questions, that he would do his best. And he did. I cannot tell you how sensitive and yet strong that consultant is, how much he cares about his patients. Every worried phone call, every bedside question – he was there to answer.

In the UK, cancer is subject to a two-week rule: if you are suspected of cancer, you must be seen by a consultant within two weeks at the absolute maximum. My father was seen within a day. He was operated on within the week.

This year, my father had a heart attack. He also needs an operation for cataracts. This is a man, terminally ill, over sixty. Not once has the NHS suggested he should just let it all go. Not once has there been a quibble about the cost. Oh yes, he had his cataracts operation delayed: not because it wasn’t worth it, but because they were worried about the stress anaesthetic would have on his heart.

What does it do to the psyche in these moments to worry about the cost? Will the insurance company cover this? What if they want to take x-rays? What about the excess?

WHY would these questions ever be appropriate at these times? Why would any society ever even consider this normal?

These moments in hospitals can be humanity at its most broken. I have heard gut-wrenching screaming coming from emergencies when working there. You never think about the cost of life beginning or ending here. You just think, ‘God, please let them be all right.’

Surely that’s the way it should be? It makes me want to cry, to think of ordinary, decent people crippled under the weight of propaganda by these heartless, grasping companies. We’re all used to seeing greedy business riding roughshod over humanity, but this is a matter of life and death. I feel like shaking those morons protesting at Obama daring to consider healthcare a right. I absolutely cannot fathom it.

The Guardian is my favourite online paper not just for the articles, but because of the wonderfully trollish (and surprisingly intolerant) debate that springs up there each day. When the right-wingers trotted out the stories of death panels and older people being killed off and What if Stephen Hawking were British? (lulz), people banded together. Comment after comment after comment: Don’t knock this. The NHS is one of the few things that we’re proud of. Really, why wouldn’t we be? This is progress. This is society doing the right thing.

If you don’t like socialised healthcare, there is always the alternative of private medicine: you can opt for private treatment in any country. Socialised healthcare just means that you will never have to sell up your house to pay hospital bills. If someone you love develops cancer, you worry about the cancer and not the treatment costs. It’s a safety net available to everyone. What is wicked or Orwellian or Hitleresque about this? In the end, it can only be that people are protesting at their money going to fund other people. Think about how very, very wicked that is: rather people die than help your neighbour.

American history and ideology interests me a great deal. It always has. I think it can sometimes be flawed (just like the NHS!) but in general, I actually like the idealism of America. Tell me what is idealistic or egalitarian or American about refusing to help those who need it.

Finally, I also did a tax comparison for UK, Spain and the US on my salary (adjusted for ₤ and $):
Spain: 22.35% (all taxes, including healthcare)
UK: 22% (National Insurance, which partly funds the NHS, is a smaller variable cost based on earnings)
US: 25%

Sleeeeeep

2009-08-01T00:47:19Z

It is 2.42am. I am sprawled on my living room floor, window and balcony doors flung wide open (albeit with the shutters half-closed in case of mozzies), with minimal clothing and iced water.

Twin trickles of sweat are running down my face right now. I am using my Not Nice Blanket to lean on as I type this, for I would otherwise sweat all over my nice new Ikea stuff.

Can't sleep; mozzies will eat me. Or I'll sweat to death, whichevs.

I have decided: autumn is my favourite season here. It is crisp and golden and I buy endless varieties of mushrooms from La Boqueria market to serve on crunchy toast during relaxed Sunday mornings, whilst the beautiful sunlight illuminates the rooms with quiet, clear contentment.

Summer is rowdy and I dunt appreciate it and I am just so not getting to sleep tonight. I can't wait to go to England. RAIN COME BACK!

(Seriously, if it rains, I am going to go and dance in the street. I have done so before. Ahem.)

Writer's Block: Bite Me

2009-07-27T08:38:20Z

From Dr. Polidori's Lord Ruthven to Stephenie Meyer's Edward Cullen, the annals of vampire lore are filled with attractive, charming bloodsuckers. Which one would you most want to be bitten by?

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Going to have to echo mumsisdaughter here and vote for Louis de Pointe du Lac or Mitchell from Being Human, though Louis would cry tears of dust afterwards and Mitchell would disown me. :p

ETA: Dammit, late addition after being reminded by palelaura : Kostya from the Nightwatch series. He can take a little drink, he's cute and he has a great hat.

Failcestors

2009-07-21T14:20:09Z

Working with tenuously-linked relatives (i.e. 20th cousin twice-removed), I have managed to make some headway with my mother's maternal grandmother and her side of the family line. Whereas the Gordons enjoyed silly adventures and fell from a position of monied idleness in Scotland (I wonder if Alexander ever regretted running away with the maidservant), the Gauls were just one long line of Fail.

Robert Gaul was born around 1800, possibly in Lincoln, before deciding to set off on his merry way and go and see Liverpool. There, he fell in with Esther Connor, an Irish immigrant and they had an amazing life together.

If by Amazing Life, we mean thrown into the Walton workhouse, along with their children. Esther died there at 47 years of age; Robert once again disappears from history.

All their children made their way out of the workhouse eventually, although one son, Thomas (and a direct ancestor of mine) seemed to really, really like that place. For what does he do but get slung back in there when he's 50? His wife Ann either scarpered or died, which really was probably the most sensible option. What a joyless lot! They could have at least called one of their sons Asterix.

Anyway, so I Googled Walton workhouse. Pssh! Good thing nobody ends up there these days. And it was this:

At which point, I was all OMGWTF! Because, during a particularly depressing and awful, awful stint working at Aintree hospital, I had to go to the grey, ugly, despairing Walton hospital site to work. I honestly thought my working life could not get any worse. And the view from my window in that hellish place was... this clock tower. Yes, Walton Workhouse became Walton Hospital. The Gaul Fail continues for another generation. D:

Tour de... Espagne?

2009-07-09T12:15:51Z

WHY are they in SPAIN? It's not even in FRANCE! Why don't they just do Route 66 while they are at it? Or the Moon? Why does Spain have to geg in on everything?
- kristoferllama in an e-mail to me today.

I don't know, Chris. What I do know is that there are steel-grey skies out there right now, with thunder and lots of rain. And that the Tour de France is passing by my office in an hour and a half. Whoo!

We'll see if curiosity wins over comfort and I go outside to watch.

ETA: It was worth it. Quite exciting! And men in skintight lycra. Ahem. >:)

rebness @ 2009-07-01T22:20:00

2009-07-01T21:11:44Z

Reply to this post and I will give you five words that I associate with you. This meme comes via top marra saffronlie, who gave me the following:

1. Paris
One of my favourite places, ever. What can I say that hasn't been said about Paris? It's just wonderful, all I need from a city. It's huge and sprawling, it's intimate. It's needlessly rude and yet so delicately beautiful. It's chaos during the day, a graveyard during the night. There's always this undercurrent running through the place, the echo of revolution and bloody, dark history. I am just fascinated by Paris and feel it deserves its hype. Disregard the plebs who bemoan the rude French or how expensive it is; they have failed to discover its true beauty. Stand outside Nicolas Flamel's ancient house or watch people worship at the Rue de Bac and tell me that this city isn't bewitching. One day I'll live there. One day.

2. Verbal bitchslapping
I'm not sure if this means I need one, or that I like or am adept at giving them out. Anyway, I REALLY LIKE DOING SO. There are so many stupid people spouting off their ill-informed, rage-inducing opinions and... and... I waste a good proportion of my working days arguing with people on The Guardian's Comment is Free threads.

3. Wine
Everyone associates this with me! I'm not an alcoholic, you guys. I just appreciate a good wine. Actually, that's a lie. I find aged wines and your fine French vintages far too refined for my palate. Give me a good, rustic rioja any day.

4. Good eats
I adore cooking and exploring, rite. If I can't always have the time to be jetting off somewhere, I can explore the world via my taste buds. Cooking is therapeutic (unless it's beef wellington). I love to cook for others, especially men (they eat with such gusto!) and pride myself on rarely following recipes, but finding my way to something via taste and spice and love of cooking.

I eat out a lot, though. I rarely went to restaurants as a child, perhaps never, so I feel it's deserved. My company also gives me a card with a monthly budget to spend in restaurants of my choice. My colleagues eat a menu del dia almost every working day; not me. I survive on pasta and rice and then splurge the budget at ridiculously-priced, ostentatious seafood restaurants once a month. Je ne regrette rien. >:D

5. Liverpool
As much as I try to deny it, this stupid, incoherent city is part of me. I love it for its feel; I despise it for its backwardness. I feel like it's given me a lot, but then it is a place devoid of opportunity. My family history is inextricably linked with this place, this melting pot where Irish and Scottish diaspora came together to create wonderful little me. I appreciate it more now that I'm away, when I come home and see that bombed-out church, soak in the arty district and adore the splendid August bank holiday festival. It's a sometimes sad place, often needlessly violent, but with an essentially good heart and a willingness to believe that the past proves a great future. I'm definitely a product of that place.

Advert on a quotations site...

2009-06-28T14:15:03Z

(Is today your day? Take the death test!)

You know, extremely bad taste aside, I don't feel so compelled to try out this quiz. It's really bizarre, because I also keep getting a really offensive advert on my Gmail (always in Spanish) asking me to take a death test. NOT RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS.

Reading: Georgiana, Duchess of Stupi...Devonshire

2009-06-23T15:31:58Z

I have been reading Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire this week. And it’s not good for my blood pressure. Let me tell you, internets, about Amanda Foreman’s sickening, fawning, absolutely useless biography of a sickening, fawning, absolutely useless woman.

Firstly, the part that offends the historian in me: I cannot believe that Foreman is a historical researcher at Oxford. Her primary sources are, for the most part, absolutely irrelevant. Each chapter is prefaced by some random newspaper report about a new fashion – it really gives one the feeling that Foreman just grabbed whatever sources she could and stuck them all in there, with no attempt to interpret the text. The most infuriating part is that Foreman counts Georgiana as the primary source for one of the few interesting parts of the book – the madness of King George – and then promptly glosses over that to tell us about yet another intensely boring gambling problem and a parliamentary debate! Apparently, this book came about after the author researched Georgiana for her PhD - and by God, it shows. It's such a plodding, meandering collection of sources with little interpretation.

Here's an example of the titillating, completely relevant details we learn about Georgiana: the spoilt cow and her cohorts make up their own accent and dialect in order to prove how very special they are. They send each other sickening letters like ‘How do oo do?’ (Apparently, it was far too common to pronounce ‘you’ correctly.) Wait, why was I reading such claptrap, again? Even James Hare remarks on the self-indulgent notes she sends to her friend Bess whilst they're in the same house: ‘…The usual answer is, “As oo do, so does poor little I, by itself.”’

Aren’t these fully-grown women just adorable?

The best thing is that Bess is her husband’s mistress. Who lives with them. Not that Georgiana displays any fighting spirit or intelligence, but cries and weeps when people point out that Bess is probably not the best person to have around. And then Bess gets pregnant with the Duke’s baby, Georgiana (‘Jaw-Jayna’ in the stupid Devonshire house patois) with some random politician’s child and…and… no, it’s too annoying to relate. Needless to say, there are few repercussions and the two silly women have a troupe of children who probably send more literate notes to each other.

I also find it unforgivable that Foreman tries to move us to tears with how very, very terrible things are for Georgiana. (She gambles away to the tune of ₤6 million in modern terms and has to escape her creditors by – oh, dear God, how could she bear it? - fleeing to the Continent to ‘take the waters’ for her delicate, fragile health.) Georgiana, she asserts, is incredibly brave in going near France, poor lamb, for she ‘feared her creditors more than the depredations of semi-literate revolutionaries.’

Wait. Let me get this straight, Foreman:

You mention in passing that people in France are rioting, killing because they are literally starving to death. Everyone from Marie-Antoinette to the people gathering in angry crowds at the Palais Royal has spent the last few years in a whirl of pamphlets, outraged speeches and literature, citing the very literate Rousseau and his famous Man is in chains quote – and you sneer at them for being semi-literate? How very dare they riot about starving to death when poor, brilliant Georgiana has gambling debts that make her pretend to be sick every time anyone mentions it?

You know, I’m not one of those who wept when Diana died. I don’t consider the woman a Saint. But I do feel some sympathy for her. She did some excellent humanitarian works – raising awareness on landmines, HIV… this spoilt, stupid, stupid ancestor of hers whom Foreman paints as an 18th century Diana did nothing of the sort! The much-maligned Marie-Antoinette was more concerned with the poor and the unfortunate. Antonia Fraser managed to write a brilliant biography which completely rehabilitated her and revealed the tormented, gentle queen beneath centuries of negative propaganda. Foreman, in contrast, does a splendid job of introducing the reader to a woman and making her intensely dislikeable with every dubious claim about how fantastic and revolutionary she is. Georgiana goes out, dressed like a moron in fox tails to canvas for Fox (who asked her to sponsor him for Parliament as a favour), is duly called a moron by the public and press, and suddenly she’s this amazing, spirited predecessor who made the world a better place? What bravery! What an amazing person, completely deserving of a 400-page biography.

Perhaps the most infuriating thing about this dull, stupid book is that Georgiana’s younger sister, Harriet, seems to have led the more sympathetic life. She was overlooked by her mother in favour of her annoying sister. She married a man who was a strange mixture of devotion and absolute cruelty, who beat her mercilessly, although she fought back against him as bravely as she could. Her daughter was the infamous Caroline Lamb whom fascinated Byron. She was determined, fiercely loyal and never gave up. I wish there had been more on her and not the spoilt, stupid woman who couldn’t even pronounce her own name.

Icon relevant

2009-06-16T14:26:56Z

It's heartbreaking to contrast the hope and the spirit of the people pushing for change in Iran last week to the murder and chaos today. It was stirring to see women refusing to be cowed, demanding freedom and modernism be brought to the country. So many people, so much hope.

And since this is my journal and not a circumspect newspaper: A rigged vote. That twat Ahmadinejad crushing all that hope and causing bloodshed by rigging the election and trapping Iran in that hateful cycle yet again. That utter twat Ayatollah Khamenei refusing to have the balls to support an investigation (I guess human rights aren't too much of an issue). Well, until the people continued fighting and demanded and pushed and showed such bravery in refusing to be cowed.

Why are the EU and Obama being so crap about it all? You're 'disappointed' and 'concerned'? Stern words! That'll show 'em.

I hope that the general public in Iran overturn this absolute travesty, this joke of an election. I hope that, if our leaders can't or won't express more than 'disappointment', that people the world over give their support and their empathy to these people.

http://emsenn.com/iran.php

rebness @ 2009-06-11T13:47:00

2009-06-11T11:47:55Z

Italian woman who missed the tragic Air France flight dies in car crash.

Aargh! How very Final Destination. Poor woman.

rebness @ 2009-06-09T18:06:00

2009-06-09T16:11:51Z

I wish The Perry Bible Fellowship would update more than once every blue moon. I miss reading such a demented strip and no other webcomics (that I've found - suggestions gratefully accepted) match its cruel absurdity. There are of course XKCD and Dinosaur Comics to fill the void, but the only one that actually has me gasping not to let out a howl of laughter every time I read it is 4chan stalwart Garfield Minus Garfield:

Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.

Such a simple idea, but it gets me every time.

But seriously, guys! Any recs?