Long time no post and now it's a gripe.

My hi-fi last night became the latest in the long list of things that have ceased to work in my house this year. It is no more. It has ceased to be. It is an ex-hi-fi.

It was pretty old and wasn't a brilliant piece of kit and I do have other radios, tape players and cd players. I wouldn't mind too much except that a) I now have nothing on which to play vinyl and b) my Best of the Moody Blues cd is stuck in there.

New bathroom chosen and paid for.

Now awaiting date for installation - probably late August/early September.

Before then I have to finish stripping the old wallpaper and pick out (and pay for) extras such as new roller blind, towel rail etc.

Not looking forward to the hassle of having the work done, but am looking forward to starting the new academic year with a bathroom in which everything actually works!

After last year's rant about Easter egg packaging, I'm happy to report that this year the loose chocolates came in just a little cellophane bag and they and the egg were in a plastic tray inside a cardboard box. Much better.

(The chocolates used to come inside the egg, which meant the egg could be in a smaller box, but I suppose there's some EU regulation that forbids that now.)

I'm not the only person who was annoyed by excessive packaging last year:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7990446.stm

From innocent_lex

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.

Huh. This author writes long sentences. You can have one:

Finally, the sheer size of the Wealden parishes, and the fact that their farms were often remote from the parish church and isolated for long periods of the year, inevitably made them difficult to govern.

Why is it that when you're on a bus with a lot of noisy schoolkids, the ones making the most noise are always the last to get off, so you're stuck with them for nearly the whole journey?

Current Mood: cranky

I need to replace some light bulbs in my house. They're in places where I need a good light, so I use 100w bulbs. I haven't had to buy any in a while, but I've used all I had in the cupboard, so today I went shopping for 100w bulbs.

Wilkinson only had traditional light bulbs up to 60w. For 100w, I'd have had to buy the 'energy saving' type. I don't like 'em, but it seemed I had no choice.

They'll last for up to eight years, it said in big letters on the front of the box. OK, I thought. Then I read the teeny, tiny print on the back. '.... if used for 2.7 hours a day.' Um - this is England in December. On a good day you turn the light on at around 3.30 pm and turn it off when you go to bed.

Then I looked at the price. £3.99 each. Four pounds?? Four pounds for a light bulb?? I have a box of 60w in the cupboard that cost 89p for four.

I came away empty handed.

Current Mood: pissed off

(I can't get the cut to work, don't know why.)

New BBC drama by the people who made Life on Mars, which should be a recommendation. However, these are also the people who made Ashes to Ashes.

The first episode of any new show has a lot of ground to cover. Grab the audience's attention so they'll want to watch again, establish the characters and their world, and set the theme and tone of the series.

The characters, so far, are fairly two dimensional stock characters. The eccentric older man, the feisty woman with a secret in her past, the young hunk, the pretty girl, the smarmy boss whose aims are at odds with the lead character's. The acting was adequate. Some of the dialogue was clunky exposition, telling the characters things they already knew in order to inform the audience, for example the reporter talking about Gillian's mother, but even Shakespeare couldn't find a way to make infodumps interesting. But does any educated 20-something really say 'I'm not being funny, but - ' when reporting a violent burglary?

As to their world - if Daniel Jackson saw some of the so-called archaeology that was going on, he'd be so far from his happy place he'd never find his way back again.

How on earth did Viv get to post-grad level without learning the basic dos and don'ts of archaeology? Apart from the not-standing-on-the-edge thing, finds should be reported, recorded and photographed in situ, not simply hauled out of the ground with no regard for their fragility, and then reported later with a casual 'Oh, I found this'.

It's not just Viv who wasn't following procedure - unless the rules have changed, if human remains are found they must be reported to the police and the site treated as a potential modern crime scene until proven otherwise.

And a Middle Eastern coin found in Britain at any time during the last 2000 years is nothing to get particularly excited about, and there were apparently enough fragments of the True Cross circulating in mediaeval Europe to populate a small forest, so why get so excited about this one?

Story, theme and tone: Knights Templars. Yawn. But I suppose they're familiar to the audience this show is going for, so it's reasonable they'd use them in a first episode. We have a mystery about Gillian's mother which is presumably going to be addressed alongside the Story Of The Week.

The tone I found to be a bit of a mishmash. On the one hand they're trying to be relevant and contemporary and make serious points about religious hatred. (With a very nasty murder, justifying its post watershed timeslot). On the other hand it's fantasy, with blokes wandering around with big swords, Highlander style (and nobody notices?), and the sheer OTTness of some of the dovecote scenes.

I enjoy fantasy if it's well done. But in order for me to suspend my disbelief, the characters and the world on which the fantasy intrudes have to be believable, and so far I'm not convinced by either.

It seems to be aiming for a slightly nore upmarket audience than Primeval, in that we haven't (yet) seen Viv wandering around in her underwear. And one subtle touch that I liked was naming the nurse Helena

I'll give it another go, but if it's to be a 'must watch' for me, the characters will have to become more than two-dimensional, the archaeology will have to be more accurate, and they really do need to make up their minds whether they're going for serious contemporary drama with Issues, or pure OTT fantasy. I found last night's episode an uneasy mix.

It's snowing.

Not settling, but there are real, actual snowflakes drifting down outside.

Can't say I'm surprised, it was sure as hell cold enough when I was out shopping earlier.

Have just opened an Easter egg which came with a small box of chocolates. The chocolates were in a plastic tray, in a cardboard box, in a cellophane wrapper, then, with the egg, inside a plastic box inside a cardboard box.

The plastic and card are recycleable, but consider the resources that went into manufacturing all this, then transporting it to the shop (because it needs more lorry space than a simpler package would), then collecting the packaging and taking it to a recycling plant.

Blocked up or runny nose on and off all week.

Eyes feeling sore and gritty all day today.

Voice nearly gave out on me this morning.

Just sneezed twice.

It's that time of year again. Bring on the anti-histamines.

Really vicious hailstorm this afternoon. Only lasted about five minutes.

Had to be the five minutes when I was walking back from the bus stop, of course.

Someone who is one of the leading scholars in her field, which is sort of mine too, is giving a talk on Monday evening. She's getting on a bit, so there might not be many more opportunities to hear her speak.

I'll be in that town on Monday morning so if I want to go to the talk I'll either have to hang around there for six hours, or come home and go out again later.

The place where she's giving the talk is a 20 minute walk plus a 20 minute bus ride away. By the time I'd want to come back, the buses only run hourly.

I have to be out on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Do I want another late-ish eveing in a working week, especially at this time of year?

OTOH, I'm sure I'd do it if it was to meet friends or for some fandom related activity. Shouldn't professional reasons be an even stronger motivation?

What to do?

It's possible to study Science Fiction as a module in the History BA, of all things, at my local university. Here are some questions from past papers.

‘The science fiction film genre is very often dumbed down to a mere spectacle of loud explosions and special effects.’ Is the use of spectacle in science fiction film anything more than such trivialisation?

‘The successful story worlds of science fiction and fantasy tend to escape the control of their initial creator, turning into the collective product of a social activity. Asimov’s robot stories, and the TV series Star Trek, serve as examples.’ Discuss in relation to any sf story world with which you are familiar.

(Translation - can you recommend any good fic?)

Construct a set of ground rules to guide whether, and to what degree, we should be ‘cautiously suspicious’ or ‘openly friendly’ on our very first contact with extraterrestrial aliens.

(Isn’t ‘extraterrestrial aliens’ tautology?)

Can you establish here and now (as you sit this exam) and to the examiners’ satisfaction whether or not you are an android?

I need a small quantity of white masonry paint.

So I was very pleased to see that Wickes, my nearest DIY superstore, has a range of small tins of masonry paint.

Except that they don't make it in white. WTF? Wouldn't you think that would be the most popular colour? And the salesgirl kept offering me other stuff and I kept repeating 'That's no good, it's for timber,' and 'That's no good, it's for indoors, not outdoors.'

Online searching shows that B&Q carry a range of small tins but guess what, not in my local branch. And the next one I can get to is out of stock. And if I've got to spend hours and bus fares trying to get this stuff I might as well buy a big tin and throw away what I don't use.

Sigh. It's looking as if it would have been cheaper and easier in the long run to pay someone to do the damn job, however much it goes against the grain to pay someone to do something I can do myself.

Current Mood: frustrated

Browsing the Education section of The Times online today, I came across an article about A Level students being unable to write essays and needing remedial teaching when they arrive at university. This was no surprise, as a friend of mine who teaches undergraduates was complaining about the same thing last week.

What had me laughing out loud was in the comments section of the page. A student wrote that each of her A Level physics papers included at least one extended writing task of - wait for it - roughly one side of A4.

Yes, I know that science subjects don't require essay writing in the way that arts and humanities do, but anyone who thinks that one side of A4 is extended writing is in for a shock somewhere along the line.

(And when I was in the Sixth Form, in the Dark Ages, the school required the science A Level people to do something called Essay Class, so they all had practice in essay writing. And we all sat an additional AO Level called General Paper, in which we had to write essays on current affairs, general knowledge, etc.)

And on another topic entirely - why is it so hard for some people to grasp the concept that after a Bank Holiday, rubbish collection is one day later? There are festering bin bags outside every other gate. Not nice.

Hoovered all through the house today. That's an unusual enough event to be worth mentioning here. Also took advantage of some decent weather to wash towels and bedlinen and mow lawn.

From a Neighbourhood Watch leaflet on preserving the crime scene following a burglary:

Do not handle it in a way you would normally handle it as the intruder is likely to of handled it this way too.

Sigh.

I'm having a clear out and tidy up, room by room. Today was the turn of the bedroom, which then expanded into the study as I tried to make space for things which don't belong in the bedroom but which I didn't want to get rid of.

What does one do with all those postcards, leaflets and guidebooks one acquires on holiday? They're very difficult to store tidily and accessibly. And what about all those magazines one doesn't have time to finish reading right now, but will read one day, maybe? And birthday and Christmas cards from years back?

On the plus side, the bedroom looks quite tidy and I find that now I've removed all the junk there is space in the bookcase for quite a lot more books. And I'm filling up bags for recycling and for the charity shop.

On the minus side, I've yet to tackle the two drawers in the bedside unit. I haven't seen the bottom of those in years. The study floor is strewn with stuff awaiting a keep/don't keep appraisal.

And I'm bored with this now. Want to go and do something else.

I've been repeatedly told, by two different people, that the deadline for me to submit some information is the end of June. I've just got home to find an e-mail telling me the deadline is in fact 1st June. Since I'm going to be out all day tomorrow, that means I've got to get it sorted this evening. I'd planned to do something else work-related this evening.

And what's with the weather forecasts these days? It was supposed to rain today. It's been blue skies and sunshine. I've been uselessly carrying a coat about all day.

ankh_lj asked for five recs. What better way to spend a cold, wet, dismal Bank Holiday than revisiting some favourite fics and eating chocolate?

All Gen unless stated.

Action Adventure:
I have to have something by ELG, and since sailorsueuk bagged Ripples, I'll go for The Quality of Mercy. Long offworld adventure. Dannywhumping. Jack and Daniel friendship. Team. ELG piles on the hurt, but she doesn't forget the comfort.
http://www.bunnyfic.com/elg_gen.htm

Slash:
Sideburns writes long, angsty (keep the tissues handy) J/D fics, with plots as well as relationship stuff. Slash, but nothing very explicit. There are a lot to choose from, but I'll go for Who Wants To Live Forever.
http://www.area52hkh.net/author.php?name=Sideburns

AU:
You Can't Always get What You Want. Long (are we seeing a pattern here?) Moebius follow on by Beta Candy. Still hoping for a sequel.
http://community.livejournal.com/betacandy_sgfic/

Little Daniel:
There is a Season, by Darcy and Kalimyre. Ten year old Daniel is fostered by Colonel O'Neill. Long (no, really?) and angsty. Possibly just edges in as my favourite Little Daniel fic because we get growth and change for Jack as well as Daniel.
http://www.jd-divas.com/kalimyre/season.shtml

Humour:
Acts of God and Colonels, by Livengoo. Jack tries some DIY. He and Daniel end up needing a shower.
http://www.stargatefiction.com/shower/acts.htm