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.

I spoke with a dear friend earlier tonight. I confessed that I was run off my feet today and quite deranged after the weekend of boiling, though ticking off my to-do list with reasonable satisfaction in preparation for the last mag issues of the year and my imminent scarpering to Blessed Winter.

She advised me to take a cool drink of something refreshing. I had just the thing: pomegranate juice in the fridge after my weekend raid of the health food shop.

I poured a glass, drank it, and fell back nearly 35 years into hot desert cities with morning calls to prayer and mustachioed men handing sticky glasses slick with frost against the heat of the day and brimming with tart sweet pink amber juice to small children and admonishing all of us to respect our parents and play somewhere else.

I am now not entirely certain that I am taking the right trip ...

It is 41.5 degrees C, which is over 100 in the old money. If you hear nothing further from me, it is because I have melted. I make note that it is not yet summer.

It is 1.35am and 31 degrees at my house.

I was so slaughtered by the day that I fell asleep when I came home, and thus did not manage to go and buy a big bag of ice, which means I cannot have an iced drink as Mr Brammers does not love me and did not psychically intuit my need. Also, I failed to dig out the ice cube trays and make use of the freezer, due to the aforementioned slaughter.

And yes, I have had sorbet or gelato for dinner two days in a row. Given the weather report, this may extend to four by the end of the weekend.

And in case Barnaby Joyce or Ian Pilmer are secretly on my flist, solar activity is currently at a fifty-year low. Also, I really hate both of you.

This is one of THOSE days, a day when so many fabbo people were born that you start to see why people believe in astrology. So ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, to:
annes_stuff , you're such a lovely young lass, and you put up with me very well. I hope that this is a year in which everything comes together as you deserve it to, and your matchless glare of good sense is met every time with people saying 'Hmmm, good point, I will fix that right now!' Except when it's wanting me to be less tardy, I've spent YEARS perfecting this ;-) There will be a gift, it will be from Paris. Unless it's from London.

painless_j , not only do you chronicle your fave picks from so many fandoms, but you do it with a gentleness of touch and such good humour and openess that fandoms I have no interest in start to seem insanely attractive. I think it's you! May the present fairy be lavish!

frances_veritas , never in my life did I think I would care about soap opera stars, but you make me want your Luke and Noah to be happy and fulfilled, because they make you happy. And your generosity and kindness cheer me, thank you for both! I hope that there is cake abungo for you!

josanpq , I miss you! I hope that you have a lovely day and that life is treating you well.


Woah!!!!!! All week I have had Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill running through my head. For no reason at all, I am watching Robert Pattinson on Letterman, and they just played the ads in and out with that music! It is not a sign! I do not have time to go to Bath and the Costume Museum! I have to go to Canterbury instead. *Is firm*

I had my H1N1 vaccine this morning. No side effects so far, and it didn't even hurt! I far prefer flu vaccines to tetanus!

But the most exciting thing for me was reading the government information leaflet -- it's really good! Along with a section explaining that Panvax is not a live vaccine, so it's perfectly safe for foetuses (H1N1 influenza disproportionately causes miscarriage and serious maternal illness), it had a section addressing Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). GBS is a serious neurological syndrome that unexpectedly affected about 500 people in New Jersey after a mass vaccination programme in the US in 1976. Since then, there has not been another proven connection between flu vaccines and GBS, and the research done on the event suggests that it was probably a single batch infected with campylobacter, a known precursor to GBS (and a REALLY horrible stomach illness, trust me!)

Since 1976, although GBS has been raised as a concern by people who are not in favour of mass vaccination, there has not been any proof of a subsequent link between GBS rates and flu vaccination. Nevertheless, because governments and scientists generally err on the side of caution, a risk of 1 additional case of GBS per million vaccinations is given, and is stated on the Australian information sheet. Something aside from campylobacter that is known to cause GBS is influenza, and, as the info sheet says: "you are four to seven times more likely to contract GBS after an attack of the actual influenza than after the vaccination".

In actual fact, the risk of GBS from influenza seems to be more in the realm of forty times more likely, as rates are around 4 to 7 per 100,000 cases of influenza.

However, reading that paragraph in the surgery, I gave a little cheer. FINALLY a statement of risk that contextualises it sanely!

Why does this matter? Because people are being told by bad media reports and social networking scares that flu vaccine is not safe, that it contains chemicals that are known to cause harm and that it is not tested. In fact, H1N1 vaccines around the world are being made by the same companies that make seasonal flu vaccines, using the exact same methods. Flu vaccines save tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of lives every year, with excellent safety records. Most, like Panvax, contain no live vaccine -- people who are allergic to eggs are offered a version with live vaccine in many places, including the US, as it is safer for them.

H1N1, on the other hand, is not a safe nor mild disease. It has had a very serious impact on people between 20 and 50, who are normally minimally affected by seasonal flus. In fact, the death toll for old people, the usual flu victims, is statistically low for H1N1. And the people aged 20-50 being affected are not the usual immune-compromised set, either, but both the healthy and those whose only health issue is being overweight. If you're up for it, check out this excellent article from New Scientist on swine flu myths and how they are endangering people's health.

Having seen the incredible impact of H1N1 on the health system in Australia last year -- a warm country in which flu is not as dangerous as it is in cold countries -- I had no hesitation in getting the jab. Well, aside from my usual disorganisation delay ... Fourteen hours later, not even localised swelling. And if you're in Australia and have a Medicare card, it's free! Obviously, talk to your doctor and read the info from your health authorities if you have concerns.

You can read the Australian info sheet as a PDF, downloaded from here, it's available in several languages in the vaccination information sheet category down at the bottom right.

I was talking with a lovely young person earlier today about her idea for an hp_religion fest. Despite the fact that I am a godless heathen, I find religion endlessly fascinating and think that it works very well as a lens through which to view the Potterverse (obviously, since the author was consciously constructing a Christian allegory in parts).

Thinking about this, I had an epiphany of sorts, which relates strongly to the current brouhaha* on mpreg among my fandom friends.

My atheism does not affect the religiosity of some of my friends. Their beliefs do not affect my atheism. I would consider it the height of rudeness to tell them they cannot believe in their sundry gods, and they, after a cursory effort to convert me in a few cases, do not tell me that I must believe in one of their religions.

Some of them do believe that I am going to hell. Some of them believe that I am missing some basic truth of the universe. I believe that they believe in something a bit basically odd. Every now and then I have one of those conversations that goes: 'But how can you believe there's nothing?' 'How can you believe in something that is obviously an anthropological artefact?' 'No seriously, nothing? How?!'

However, in both cases, it doesn't matter. My lack of belief, my friends' beliefs, they are things that are important to US, not things that we need each other to adopt. The things that unite us, that bind us, are far deeper and more important.

Similarly, I think that there are lots of things in fandom that we take very very personally, but they are important to us as individuals, and when we try to make the personal public, it's just a recipe for disaster.

One of my friends loves mpreg because it soothes her soul, one of them loves it because it allows her to investigate whole new ideas in stories. I think it's fairly daft because I think stories about babies and pregnancy are essentially daft, just as I don't like avocado and am the least romantic person in the world. It doesn't matter! I leave more avocado for pushdragon ! My mpreg atheism does not weaken anyone's mpreg faith! It's exactly the same as the way that gay marriage doesn't weaken straight marriages.

Anyway, heathen_archive , come back! Maggie and Liz, chins up! And everyone else, like what you like, even if it's not me ;-)


* It's certainly more than a kerfuffle, but not yet a schism, and too personal to some to be considered wank.

There is a catastrophic fire danger alert in place for parts of South Australia tomorrow. It's the first outing for the new fire warning, which is explained in the PSAs along the lines of 'Leave immediately, or you may die.'. It will be 39 degrees C, !00F, which is part of a month of record heatwave conditions for the state. It's still SPRING. Summer looks horribly grim.

Actually, it's more like Back! Knackered! and Panicking! as if I have just realised how soon it is until I am going to England and France (haircut and H1N1 vaccine have both been booked! New suitcase and an extra few tops required!)

I have several hd_hols fics to beta, so this is going to be a quiet week from me, but I also have some loot to give away. One of the fun things about magland is that there is often beauty loot going at tiny prices or for free. Alas, I sometimes have impulse control issues when it comes to things like, shall we say, nail varnish. I now have four bottles of brightly coloured varnish that need to find new homes, as they are not designed for people with pale blue-red skin with minuscule amounts of olive-gold in their complexion. If you have the same colouring as me, alas, these are not for you. Looking at them, I think you want to have a lovely rich skin colour for best results.

Ideally these would go to one or two people, but I'll take whoever gives me the best or funniest reason why one or more should go to them. Just comment, and let me know which colour/s you'd like. Bugger the postage, give a few dollars to someone who needs them with my best wishes.

1 bottle Zoya Professional Lacquer in Jo: a soft, pale blue with a metallic shimmer. It's almost lilac, and has a lovely finish to it. A little transparent, I think three or four coats would be idea with this one, but the overall finish is nice.

1 bottle Bourjois So Laque! in Bleu violet: an opaque blue-purple, mid to dark tone. Almost Cadbury's purple. It's actually the best of the lot in terms of opacity and smoothness, two coats without undercoat or topcoat look very good. Alas, no photo I could pilfer, but Google it if you're keen.

1 bottle Mavala varnish in 241 Red Crystal: a cerise-red that would be better with multiple coats (I stopped at two). This is my least favourite, but I think that could be because I was too lazy to apply it properly, and red is a bit unforgiving at the best of times. Sadly, no photo for this one, either, and it's a mini bottle, so I;d prefer to send it with one of the others if anyone would care to ignore my persuasive anti-sales pitch.

1 bottle Shu Uemura nail enamel in P220 (a Fall 2009 Limited Edition): rich old gold in mid colour value. This one is Google-able, too, but no pix I can insert. It's a nice subtle metallic and has a good coverage, with a formula that is less ghastly than most nail varnishes. Looking at the rush job I did, I think this would benefit from a good preparation as it's a bit streaky on my nails without base coat and with no pre-buffing. Basically a very nice colour and texture, just naff on me.

In an annoying side note, John Coates, the head of the Australian International Olympic Committee is on TV at the moment saying that Australia should give more money to elite Olympic athletes. He has just said with a completely straight face that his athletes deserve an extra $100 million per annum because every Australian athlete has the right to aim for international success. I have friends who have multiple post-doctoral degrees and who work in research science and who earn less than $50,000 per annum. Some of them earn far less. FUCK YOU, COATESY!

I am willing to bet that the benefit to Australia of world-class scientists is significantly greater than that of world-class athletes. Alas, there is no Nike Laboratory for Geoscience ...

I have just been sorting out my travel wallets (I have one per currency, it saves a lot of time and stress if you go back to the same places a lot) and I came to sort out my new UK one. It was a gift from calanthe_fics , and she popped a few treats inside. One of them was a condom, which all young people should carry several of. At the time, I assumed it was a continuation of an in-joke that, given the lack of sex in almost all of my fics, I am secretly a nun.

Today, while cleaning out the wallet, I actually looked at the condom. It expired in 2003. I am now not sure if Cal was making a really sophisticated nun joke, or if she has a secret condom museum and was clearing out a duplicate.

In more amusing news, check out Mic and Dyson's Open Fandom, Open Couple Kissing Meme, it's the sweetest idea in ages, from two of the loveliest people in fandom!

I'm off to NZ in the morning, I may or may not have net access. I do have a house sitter who likes cats, so the important things are covered ;-)

Nick Minchin is one of those annoying people who sincerely believes there is a monolithic Left. He's also an Australian parliamentarian.

Now I am wiling to accept that there is an 'Extreme Left' in which all members all think alike. There are about 43 of them in Sydney, and possibly 112 in London. They all smell abysmal and fail to see the irony of their smoking and I am related to at least one of them and would happily run over her self-consciously plastic shoes with my brand-name bicycle.

But Nicko believes that Climate Change is a beat-up organised by an internationally coordinated and starlingly powerful Left. He is quoted in today's Sydney Morning Herald: 'For the extreme left it provides the opportunity to do what they've always wanted to do - to sort of de-industrialise the Western world,'' he said.

I can't help wondering if he is looking at the same group of Climate Change klaxon-sounding scientists that I am. The ones who communicate via internet 18 hours a day, who take readings from satellites, who invest in alternative energy sources and who, like Al Gore, are making significant profits from such investments.

Moreover, I wonder if he remembers history. In the middle of last century radical agricultural scientists led by Norman Borlaug concluded that in order to feed the world, we would need to break with traditional farming methods and use science to produce high-yield foods. Borlaug had views that Minchin would doubtless pooh-pooh as being 'leftist' and de-empowering to the agricultural world. He wanted to feed people, and to allow countries like Mexico to spend their money on their people rather than importing food.

Borlaug's agricultural changes are known as the Green Revolution, and you can read about them on the internet pretty easily. If his name sounds a bit familiar to you, it's because he died earlier this year. Borlaug is a hero in some parts of the world and a villain in others; some of the 43 Leftists in Sydney will tell you that he was a running dog lackey of the Imperialist West. Personally, I think he did the best job he could with the science he had to hand and should be looked at in the context of his later calls for better soil management in modern agriculture, as well as his immense success in actually feeding people.

The reason that I am talking about the Green Revolution here is that it was a massive science-driven shift in the way we lived in the world, very much like the one that is being proposed by scientists who wish to limit future anthropogenic climate change. And the Green Revolution allowed a lot of people to make a lot of money. Companies such as Monsanto were born on the back of the Green Revolution, and pre-GFC it had a US$2 billion annual sales figure.

SO, why is it that Nick Minchin and his mates look at this situation and see something they need to run around and flail about, while so many other people look at the same situation and see a problem to be solved and new technologies to invest in? The irksome thing is that the industries Minchin and co allege they are protecting have already been gutted by the major companies running them: climate change activists did not close BHP in Newcastle 10 years ago, leaving thousands out of work, BHP did.

Bloody hell, it's getting to a point where I am starting to like Malcolm Turnbull again.
 

And, as feralcheryl points out, Kevin Rudd, you're getting a slapping, too. Who do you think you are? Howard?

Normal fandom discussion will be resumed shortly.

Twenty years since the Wall fell – it feels like just yesterday. I remember the time well: between 9/11/89 and a point some time after the release of Mandela, it felt as though the world was at least growing up and nations were acting better. Nice work, Gorby, you were a class act, as were so many others at that time.

On the bad side, I am watching a TV special on the Australian conservative parties negotiating their response to climate change, and I have my smacking trousers on again for many of them. Ian MacFarlane, you and I don't agree, but I respect your pragmatism and willingness to have your mind changed based on science, so you will not be smacked. Tony Abbott, on the other hand ...

Tony Abbott is a man who, propelled by his absolute Catholicism, used his position in parliament to attempt to restrict Australian women's access to abortion (a legal procedure) again and again during his party's time in power. Nevertheless, he has the audacity to declare that climate change scientists are 'evagenlical' in their zeal, and to imply that the science is full of holes. 'If you look at the figures,' he says, 'you will find that the Earth has actually been cooling since the late 1990s.' Well, yes, because 1998 was the hottest year on record.

So, what he is saying is that since the hottest year on record, things have not been quite as hot. This is true (well, largely, figures are still being collated and 1998 may be bopped off as the hottest year soon). Nevertheless, the last decade has been hot well beyond what we consider 'normal'. Take a look at the first graph on this page to see the Australian figures alone. To give an analogy, since July 1998, my right foot has had lowered pain levels. This is because in that month, I shattered my foot and then spent a week hopping around on a pair of crutches with just a bandage on it thanks to a mis-read X-ray. My foot is still manky and it still bloody well hurts, which it did not before that date. Such a smacking for you, Tony!

Barnaby Joyce is in for one hell of a smack. He is a National, the Australian rural party, and believes that work to stop climate change must be stopped at all costs. Not only is he damning his constituency to continued drought, increased catastrophic bushfire, and no work in planning to shift agriculture to a lower-carbon-emitting system (something which represents LESS of a change than the Green Revolution of the 1950s), but he is destabilising his own party in a bid to have his own way.

I am reminded of the words of Gough Whitlam, a former Australian Prime Minister of chequered legacy, but good quotes.

When a Joyce-like figure stood up in Whitlam's parliament and declared: 'I am a country member!', Whitlam's sonorous tones rang out, saying: 'Oh, we remember.'

I know that the title of this post will provoke one of three responses:
a. You write? How fascinating! I've been here for ages and I had no idea!
b. Yeah, bet it's not the conclusion of any of your WiPs.
c. It's from a fest, isn't it? Whatever happened to no fests?

To which I say: Yes, though sporadically -- at least I don't pretend to be organised. Er, no, it's not. And, look, it wasn't a fest, it was a FAIR. And vaysh made me. She is very convincing in addition to being devilishly attractive.

I was determined not to write anything for hd_career_fair , but then a friend put up a prompt and since I failed miserably with her birthday fic this year, I thought I should give this a go. I wanted to write something deep, meaningful, affecting and insightful. As things turned out, not so much ... Thankfully, raitala was around to provide inspiration, artistic genius, and a solid boot to my arse.

I'm reposting it here in a slightly tidier version. My poor beta works under the most trying circumstances imagineable (i.e. with me).

Title: Little Red Courgette
Artist: raitala
Author: blamebrampton
Prompt Number: 179, from calanthe_fics
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Draco/Harry
Summary: When this season’s purple courgettes are woefully thin, Draco Malfoy thinks it amounts to small beans. Next thing he knows, the Department of Standards is over-run with leeks, Brussels sprouts all sorts of legislative difficulties, and somebody appears to have put a roquette under Harry Potter. Can Draco seize a marrow victory? Or will his plans for peas be squashed?
Warnings: Dreadful vegetable jokes and puns by the bushel. See that title? That’s quality compared to some of the stuff after the link.
Word Count: about 31,000
Author's Notes: Dearest Cal, I apologise profusely for everything that follows. vaysh made me. At least there’s lots of Draco! Sorry – I mean the Blond, darling Dragon the Slytherin sex-god.

Thank you an enormous amount to raitala , who thinks that she is not good at cartoons, to which I say AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! And you will, too, after seeing them.

Thank you to brilliant jadzialove for her legendary beta skills with all of six minutes’ notice, to pingrid and raitala for encouragement above and beyond the call of fandom duty (and spotting some of my stupider typos), and to the mods for not sending out the goon squad as I missed every deadline set for me. You are all very lovely and patient beyond measure. If I didn’t already adore you all, I would start now.

The keen gardener who is reading will note that courgettes in this story are treated as though they are uniformly available in sizes above six inches. While this is the case in many greengrocers’, said keen gardener will also be aware that the better growers pick them and sell them smaller than this. Alas, this reality intruded on the comedy, and so was ignored. For the sake of this story, the wizarding world has long been held hostage to monster marrows.

Finally, Rowling and Bloomsbury italicise the ‘the’ in The Quibbler, but not in the Daily Prophet. Since both have the article in the masthead, this makes me froth at the inconsistency, but I have kept it. I also apologise to Ms Rowling and all those who profit from her for what I have done with her characters and situations. I do feel guilty, if that provides any consolation.

( Little Red Courgette )

Part 2

I read Christine Kenneally's story on the Victorian bushfires in the New Yorker (last week's edition in the US, this week's in Oz), as well as the news from Fort Hood today, and part of me felt miserable, but part of me thought how astonishingly brave people are.

Because, faced with a brain-snapped colleague who was heavily armed, people at Fort Hood ran to protect and save each other where they could, with news reports even telling of a shot solider who ran to warn others to move away from the area where the shooter was. And faced with walls of flame so intense they were spreading by exploding gas clouds, volunteer Victorian firefighters saved hundreds, including two teams racing to a campsite where they loaded their trucks with the campers before driving the trucks into a river and sitting there as the fire went past, saving all 19 campers from being incinerated with their campsite.

It's so easy to focus on the needless deaths that seem to occur daily, but I think that every now and then we should also focus on the fact that without acts of courage that are often shaken off by those who make them as being 'what anyone would do', the world would be a far grimmer place. Things are often crap, but people can be remarkable, and I'm grateful for that.

I would like to be in England setting fire to appropriate things – Lewes will be so much fun tonight. Oh well, I had a baked potato!

I have long had a very disturbing thing for Boris Johnson. I rationalise it away by saying that he's a cyclist, so aside from his questionable use of his penis and occasionally nutty policies, he must be a decent chap underneath. As it turns out, he is! (And for those who are click-phobic, he rescued a woman who was being menaced by young girl thugs armed with an iron bar, chasing after the girls as they ran off before returning to escort the young woman home, where he left her in peace (in case you were wondering).)

On an unrelated matter, I took my comfiest shoes in for resoling today. I mentioned this to a friend who looked at me as though I was an alien. 'When shoes wear out,' she told me gently, 'it is a sign that you need to buy new shoes!' When she discovered that I am also a repairer of handbags and clothing, she laughed and asked if I darned socks, too. 'If they're really nice ones!' I answered, at which point she rolled her eyes. So ...

Poll #1480605 Repairs!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 84

Repairing items rather than buying new ones is ...

Personally, I think repairing is ...

Your opinions on repairing have been informed by ...