Hi Friends, LJ Users, Nigerian Scammers, Russian Bots and sundry others!
Thanks for taking a moment to read my sticky post on friending.

On the whole, there's no need to friend me if you just want to read my fics, since they are posted unlocked. In fact, most of my locked posts are me ranting about the state of the world (usually from a politics or media slant) or some such.

Generally, I am a ready friender. If you friend me and you have entries in your livejournal or have commented on some of my posts, you can usually expect to be friended back, unless:
* There are no entries in your LJ.
* I do not recall us ever having 'spoken' online (given how selective my memory is, you should probably assume this.)
* Your LJ is written wholly in a language I do not speak (pretty much anything that is not English, or French or Italian (both of which I speak poorly), or German, Spanish, Latin, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Welsh or Irish (all of which I have a smattering of and enough reference books to get the gist.) (Though if your journal is in actual Latin as opposed to Lorem Ipsum, I will probably immediately friend you on principle.)
* Your journal consists of several entries a day concerning My Little Pony, school and whether your hair looks better in plaits, pigtails, or with a fringe pouf. You are probably adorable, but should not be subjected to my occasional flocked rants.

SO, if you've friended me (thanks!) and I've not friended you back, just drop a brief line saying 'Excuse me, oh vague and neglectful one, could you friend me back please?'

I can't guarantee that I will ever have time to be a good lj friend, but I will try and provide you with amusing content and I always try to read my whole flist. Well, the stuff before the cut at any rate.

This is a frustrating month of frustrations.

On the upside, today is a Great Day for Fandom! For it is the birthday of many terrific people!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO
calanthe_fics , whose sense and talent inspire and delight, and who will one day get the fic I started to write for her last year, except that it is much harder work than I had imagined (I am going for NC17!) May you have the most delightful weekend possible, and may this year see everything fall into far easier places!

marryoh  whose cheeriness and passion for good Merlin fic brighten up many a day. And how can anyone blame a girl for being seduced by the glory that is Bradley? I hope that he appears outside your house with a flat tyre! (Cal and I will fight you for him, then I will steal Cal Jnr's fave toy to distract Cal!)

mahaliem , whose writing is so thoroughly humane, whether hilarious humour or things more serious, that when I was recently really impressed by someone else's writing, the best way I could find to compliment it was to say that it had a touch of the mahaliems. I hope that this year will bring you comfort and joy.

and also to lelwani , I hope your studies have been going well and that you are having a lovely time even though you've not been around much lately.

Finally, HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY el_princess  for the 2nd. Oops! Haven't seen you about for some time so I am hoping that translates to you spent it having a great time elsewhere. And fourth_rose , did you really have a birthday and not tell anyone? That's no help! I like to make a fuss over you! Honestly, I am hopeless enough at things that are on the list ... Anyway, very best wishes!

And CAKE FOR ALL!

anteka  and morien_san , you lovely, lovely people! I am snowed under to buggery, so my wishes for you are short and lame, but who ever suffered from the provision of delicious cake and the nicest possible day? I hope both are delivered to each of you!

I had plans for a meaningful post. Or at least to deliver deeply considered comments on a number of other people's posts and some previous ones here. Instead, I come with a VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE.

Pavlovas have a life of three to four days.

Two people should not try to consume an enormous one within this period.

We might actually make it, but ooooooooooooohhhhh ...

Happy Birthday shu_shu_sleeps ! You look like your proposed age, not the actual, you know ;-)

And thank you so very much to everyone who wished me the best for yesterday! It was indeed a very lovely birthday, and I was, as a friend suggested, happier than an emo at a Twilight convention.

I know I am going to leave people off this list, and I apologise in advance, but thanks very much to aldehyde , alex_s9 , alisanne , anexiana , anthimaeria , being_here  (polar bear!!), bryoneybrynn , calanthe_fics , cassie_black12 , dragonfly_lily , emansil_08 , emerald_dragon8 , feralcheryl , fourth_rose , frances_veritas , goddessriss , jolinar_rosha , lotus_lizzy , meredyth_13 , meri_oddities , micolerose , ms_kilian , nolagal , nursedarry , okydoky , pingrid , pir8fancier , pushdragon , raitala , romaine24 , sesheta_66 , shu_shu_sleeps , southernbets , suonguyen , suttonwriter , teganscrush , thisgirl_is  and treacle_tartlet  for all your lovely messages and gifts! And to everyone who stopped by to leave a cheery comment yesterday! Thank you, too, to the generous anonymous souls who bought me some more account time -- I promise to use it wisely!

I was going to say no gifts, or spend money on Haiti if you are a compulsive giftgiver, but LJ was really helpful there, yay!

All in all that was one of the nicest birthdays in years, and full of laughs. Thank you all and everyone else on my flist for making life perpetually interesting and enjoyable!

Because I have to run off and eat pavlova with Mr Brammers, I only have a minute and so the thank yous to very kind folk will have to wait short time. However, this: 

is one of my very favourite artworks in all the world, and -- not long after hanging out with this one (there are several) in Paris -- I now have a tiny version of my very own sitting on my cabinet. Mr Brammers is worth his weight in gold, really, despite his little moments.

Being a rampant egoist* I'm going to talk about myself for a minute. As a young woman, I liked to perform. Singing, dancing, acting, showjumping, debating, dressage, you name it, I was all for it. Part of the joy was that I actually like doing all those things, part of it was that I was generally good at them, and I liked to receive the ribbons, prizes and reviews that came with them. Even when the reviews were along the lines of 'An enjoyable performance until one of the soloists ended upside-down in the timpani' (tragic story involving last-minute relocation, shorter stage and me always looking at the back of the audience, never at my feet), I could always take something from them that would help me learn and grow.

As an older woman, I became a reviewer, writing about contemporary music and books for the most part, but also events, film, theatre and even fashion on a few memorable occasions. It was an interesting enterprise as I tried to separate the ways I looked at artefacts and to judge them on levels beyond personal taste and the intent of the author. Because while both those things matter, they're not the most important things. For example: Jeff Koons has a sculpture called Puppy, which is a 12-metre-high installation of a sculpture of a West Highland terrier clad in flowering plants. Now, Koons describes his own work as having no subtle artistic intent, though he seems happy to be paid well for it. And, being a bit of a wanker, I am inclined to think that Koons is a a post-Pop opportunist who is thrilled Andy Warhol died in 1987, and sniffily disapprove of him on principle. However, neither my taste nor the author's intent are the thing that form my response to Puppy. Because it is actually impossible to have a 12-metre-high terrier blooming in front of you and not smile. It's pure Festival, in the sense of the public taking a moment out of the everyday to commune with something that is anything but everyday. Once we did it with religion, now we sometimes do it with art.

All this is background.

Where I am going with it is that I like criticism. As a performer I liked reading it to push me, and as a reviewer I liked thinking about works beyond the simple 'Oh, yes, that was lovely' or 'La Fura dels Baus are really scary and I am not used to having to run away at the theatre!'** I like reading critiques for themselves, as well as in relation to works I am going to see/read, either before or after. I read works by dead critics.

If you ever want to criticise my work, you are free to do so, and I in fact encourage it. One really brave fandom friend has just challenged a few of us to leave critical comments on all her work at the moment (and if she is fine with probably having a few people come to gawp, I'll edit this paragraph to pop her name in, although anyone not reading her already is mad, I tell you!) I am completely up for the same experiment.

However ...

( Why I'm not going to say 'concrit is a great idea!' )
All of which is a long way of saying: I do get why a lot of my friends don't like concrit and there are dozens of good reasons and a few bad ones not to, but I'm personally fine with it and think you should feel free over here, even if I respond by telling you your point is not actually as valid as you think. For example, you might now like to criticise the rambling of the above paragraphs, and I would have to grant that you make an excellent point.

On a final and unrelated note, GO ANDY MURRAY!!

( The footnotes )

Mr Brammers on Tuesday night: Now listen, since you were late getting me your birthday list, and yesterday was hell and today was a holiday, I'm only going to have tomorrow to go shopping for your birthday, so things may not be as exciting as I was planning.

Me: What's wrong with shopping on Thursday?

Him: Well, you'll want something on Thursday morning, won't you? And then you'd want to do presents rather than have me go late-night shopping.

Me (testily): For my birthday that falls on Friday?

Him: Ah. Friday. Not Thursday, then.

Me: How long have we been together?

Him. Thirteen years. Fourteen? Is it fifteen? You do a really good outraged face, you know!


NB: You lot are all quite allowed to forget my birthday, because god knows I am shocking at keeping up to date with my flist's (and at my age, it does not hurt people to forget a few years have passed), but he and I have been together since 1995! Grrrrr!

On a related note, ayes_sid  for yesterday and to separatrix  for tomorrow! I am sending you great gift and relaxed Cake Day wishes!

It's Australia Day today, the 222nd anniversary of the First Fleet arriving in Port Jackson where they dumped a load of convicts and roundly pissed off the locals who had been around for somewhere between 40,000 and 65,000 years by that point.

It's a strange public holiday, because the European attitudes to it fall somewhere between 'Fucking Godzone innit? Pass the beer!' and 'Er, actually, we pretty much failed to live up to international law when we took the country ...'* while the Indigenous attitudes are along the lines of 'Geez, you wouldn't think Reconciliation would be that hard for a country that can take monumental drought in its stride.'

As a result, the day itself sees everything from infltable-thong-swimming records to Invasion Day protests. As a ring-in, I like to do a demi-Australian Day, so I went to the pub, and had some lamb, but drank no beer and had neither lamington nor pavlova. Having said that, I am now craving pavlova ...

raitala  said something quite interesting in December, which is that I seemed far more affectionate towards Australia this year than last. I was surprised, but she was right, and it took the two of us a few minutes to work out why. Of course, it was the bushfires, and the sense of unity and purposefulness they brought out in the nation. Natural disaster is the glue that seals all cracks in Australian society, but many of the cracks still lurk underneath. Most of the time they are small and cosmetic, but a few are a bit structural. Having said that, most are being worked on and at least there is a system that allows, even encourages debate. And when all else fails, the lamingtons are brilliant, even if they turn out to have been originally from New Zealand.

On a totally unrelated and profoundly shallow note, I would wear each and every garment in this Christian Dior collection and am now thoroughly regretting not buying a new dressage hat while in London. Time to pull out the silks and sewing machine ...



* Interestingly, Governor Phillip, who came out with the First Fleet, was actually very good about the rights of the indigenous population, as were a number of his successors. John Macarthur, leading businessman of the colony, on the other hand, was a complete bastard.

Er, my Haiti auction closed on Saturday. I remembered this tonight. It helps if you think of me as being something like a red setter: shiny glossy coat swinging in the breeze, bright big eyes, warm damp nose, really, really abstracted.

ANYWAY, on to our winners! Out in front was the lovely and self-sacrificing emerald_dragon , bless her! Who saved me from the terrifying consortium of pushdragon  and meredyth_13 , and their threated Twilight porn (probably. Emerald, if you're planning on asking for a sequel or DVD extra, you may yet have your wish AND some unexpected comedy, for a given value of comedy.) In third place was theburningboy 's mum, HOWEVER, I have a caveat. Although I did not ban consortiums, they are clearly evil. Therefore, tbb's mum can have equal second place, and have her choice of whichever two options emerald does not choose.

The random prize was won by hitsuzen_hime , who was drawn from the literal hat by Mr Brammers.

If anyone above has already spent all their donation money, that's fine, just let me know and we will go to the next on the list (I have left the slips in the hat should it come to that!)

Otherwise, winners, get in touch with receipt numbers, and Emerald, you have first pick! Hurrah! Thank you very very much to everyone who bid, you are all complete champions!

I know I am not the only person on my flist who is re-reading Holmes now. Conan Doyle was a great favourite of my youth, but I seem to have forgotten a great deal of detail. Probably because my youth was some time ago. This time I am reading the books in order of writing, which is definitely to be recommended! You notice more things that way ...

* There are MANY more jokes than I had recalled, including slapstick. And the character surprises, such as McMurdo revealing Holmes's boxing prowess, are handled more deftly than I had recalled.

* Watson is by far the gayer of the two. In A Study in Scarlet, he is rescued in Afghanistan through 'the courage and devotion shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a packhorse and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.' while in The Man With the Twisted Lip, he can identify a gown of mousseline-de-soie. Let us not speak of his obsession with Holmes.

* Conan Doyle is a cheerful rebooter. Not only does Watson's Afghanistan wound migrate from his shoulder to his leg, but, in A Study in Scarlet, he describes Holmes as completely ignorant of literature and feeble at politics, and says: 'On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.' The very next story, The Sign of Four, opens with Holmes injecting cocaine, and it is implied morphine is also used when he feels like it. A few pages later, the great detective quotes Goethe (not for the only time), and in The Red-Headed League, he quotes Flaubert writing to George Sand. He is also able to recognise the King of Bohemia on first sight, and can tell you how sundry political intrigues inter-relate, though he won't, in A Scandal in Bohemia.

* Conan Doyle loves the narrative possibilities presented by the Colonies, or, just as likely, is keenly aware of the publishing markets available in each. They receive intriguing representation, though. The Subcontinent is a place of Deep Mysteries, from whence come both deeply honourable men and scoundrels of the darkest nature. Sikhs can be trusted to abide by their word, but the white man can go very bad in the hot climates. America is far, far worse, though. While the good men and women of the United States are thoroughly decent, they are surrounded by the blackest of criminal conspiracies, all motivated by money, be they religious in nature (the Mormons in A Study in Scarlet), or from a secret society (the KKK in The Five Orange Pips --  and I recall at least one other where there is a criminal gang arrayed against A Noble Hero, but have not re-read it yet). Australians are either plucky and resourceful, or else dreadful casual criminals, and New Zealanders have invariably made their fortune. I wonder at his peer group, and would love to know if he had types for some of these.

* Both Conan Doyle and Holmes are less sexist than I recall. Women are written as being more reliable, less emotional and more sensible than men on the whole. While Holmes makes a few patronising decisions, such as not revealing to a woman that her missing 'fiance' is in fact her devious stepfather, he is far more patronising to members of the police force, and for less kind reasons. On the whole, women -- and not just Irene Adler (BTW, those of you who have read A Scandal in Bohemia, do you think 'the late' means no longer Adler, or that she has died by the time the story is written?) -- come out well in the Holmes stories so far.

I am now wishing I had made notes as I read through, because more things occurred to me at the time, only to be forgotten. Still, I am less than a sixth of my way through all the stories, so I am sure I shall blather on more at a later point. If you've not had the joy, I thoroughly recommend him.

Somewhere between 41 and 42 degrees. Bleagh! But a merciful cold front rolled in late afternoon and dropped the temp by nearly 20 degrees, which may be the only reason I am still alive ;-)

In happier news, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to joanwilder , faithwood  and sparemint ! May the day have been far more gorgeous and enjoyable for you!

You remember back when I was freezing in France and I said that despite my whining about the cold, I would be complaining about the heat when I made it back to Sydney?

Mid 30s today, 40-something predicted for tomorrow. Complain, complain, complain!

Reading Sherlock Holmes again, giggling at the wandering Watson wound and Holmes who has no knowledge of literature in the first book, and is quoting Goethe in the second. Joy!

Tomorrow you will find me mostly naked, sitting on a bag of ice, reading Conan Doyle. Probably not the best day to visit.

Last year we noted development applications for a new coffee bar and a late-night dessert and chocolate bar in Erko. Immediately I wrote to the council in support of the latter and am happy to report that it has been approved ;-)

The coffee bar is a bit further progressed, and they have recently unveiled the new fit-out. It will be called The Kick Inside. Mr Brammers and I are now dreaming of a Kate Bush Tribute Cafe.

I went to post nail polish to people on Monday, and was told at the crazy post office that it is illegal. Yesterday I went to the sane post office and they agreed that yes, it was, even though it's ridiculous. I have written to the management of Australia Post to ask why, and how the Australian nail polish supplies are kept current and in season given the lack of an indigenous industry. Worst-case scenario, I will ship things to the appropriate countries with travellers ;-)

Finally, Air France and KLM are going to charge obese passengers an extra 75% to book the seat next to them, which will be refunded if that seat is empty due to low carriage numbers. I want to know if I can also book a second seat for 75% of a discount price? That's enough space for me to have a reasonable nap! Surely it would be discrimination to charge small people more!

So, now that the airlines have decided it's really all about making sure people are 'comfortable', I think we should all get involved and tell them what would make air travel truly enjoyable. I can't see a return to neat stewarding staff and edible food, but I am sure we can have a few pleasant changes. So ...

Poll #1514553 Air travel gets madder
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 73

Which airline change/s would you support?

NB, the blowdarts are for use BY the women ON annoying members of the sporting teams. And no, men do not need them when the women's cricket teams travel, those girls are lovely!

I'm sure there are other great ideas out there, feel free to share!

Hey, fic flist! Remember when we were all having a good time with next-gen characters before going back to our H/D roots? Remember how we met hollycomb ? Or when Cal convinced us that James/Scorpius could work, or when Sansa-as-was made Albus in a black leather jacket not only plausible but perfect and Bry made everyone cry, but that was OK? And then the way that draykonis  made us go 'Oh yeah, THAT'S what they'd look like ...'

So do these folks. I'm off to show some love!

It's my own fault: I know not to watch television, and I especially know not to watch commercial television news.

But still ... Channel 10 has just ran another 'Australians are short of Vitamin D!' story. Now this in itself is not my problem: there are some parts of Australian society that do have very low levels (generally the elderly and people who simply do not go outside). However, this wasn't how the ads ran nor how the presenter introduced the story.

This is: "There's a new health warning about the sun! Apparently we're not getting enough of it!"

This story has been floating around for the past few years, since a position statement on Australian levels of Vitamin D was published in the Medical Journal of Australia. In it, we read:

So a gold star to Amber Muir, and a smack to the back of the head to the Channel 10 production team.

In happier news, HAPPY BIRTHDAY lietothedevil  and banbury ! I hope you both have been enjoying yourselves thoroughly!

But hopefully just in time for angel, at least. Happy birthday/morning after your birthday angelofcaffeine  and suonguyen ! I hope the present fairy was generous!

*Sends _inbetween_  positive thoughts, but also a shoulder if you need to thump something gently!*

My box of books from London has arrived! Hurrah!

I have a cold. Boo!

It seems mild. Phew!

We are considering Pilates, is this wise?

She Stoops to Conquer is more amusing than I remembered. *Covets the fashions*