marymac

I have done something atrociously weird (and intermittently painful) to my shoulder and ribcage. And now my neck. Elaine blames my weird-ass typing posture. She may have a point. Although I think the neck I got from sleeping funny.

But I'm going hiking at the weekend. Oops? Mind you, with the current weather we'll probably end up lighting a fire and huddling round it as the clouds descend and cut us off from civilisation.

And COPAC, much though I love it, has gone distinctly odd. Keeps deciding the search string doesn't exist, even though it clearly does, because it just showed the results for it.  Strange.

cavgirl, are you about the place and do you fancy going for coffee? I'm in the office. Have gone home due to OW. Bugger. Sorry.

And since it is, technically, allegedly, springtime, daffodils!

I am having an unabashed fangirl moment here.
Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova got Best Song! At the Oscars! Wheeeeeeeee!

And my already ridiculous love of John Stewart is doubled by his going and getting Marketa back up after they cut her off. The man is wonderfully gentlemanly. And probably also wanted to inject some coherency into the proceedings. But still. Wonderful.

Almost worth getting woken at 4am for. Almost.

And now. Objects for actual work:

• Make proper notes on Irish responses.
• Read up on Imperial background and take notes.
• Combine the two.
• Howl madly at moon when this undoubtedly fails to happen.
• Spend tomorrow reading up on the Indian Civil Service, as this will undoubtedly come up.
• Have another go through the BL online papers for Irish stuff.
• Figure out how to fit all this into 20 minutes.
• Email Sean. Before we both die of old age.

I have watched 'Being Human' twice in a row.
I think I'm in love.
Really.

A vampire, a werewolf and an agoraphobic ghost. It's great. If they can get over the oh so trendy soundtrack this could turn out very very good indeed. Especially since the vampire has a very pretty accent and I am a sucker for nice voices.

Good work BBC3. Bonus points for the Clifton Suspension Bridge getting screentime. Yay bridges!

[Slightly peeved that the head vampire was not, as I thought on first hearing, Patterson Joseph, but rather the guy from Hustle sounding strangely similar to him. On the other hand, while not as inherently cool, he's quite gorgeous too. I'll live.]

Its snowing.
Its been snowing for nearly five hours now, and the cluster of phone lines across from my window are all coated, right round, in inches of snow.
Ruth and I walked the short loop of the towpath in front of their road - the snow and sky glowed, and the river was black and silver.
One of the Indian kids from across the road staged a breakout and threw snowballs at their kitchen window in her pyjamas.
The firemen are out throwing snowballs at each other in front of the fire station.
My inner four-year-old is in heaven. My outer 25-year-old is curled up on her bed with hot tea and a slight worry that my pivoting dormer window will not stand up to being snowed on all night.

Last time it snowed like this was the very end of December 2000, and my cousins were up - it was Alex's first proper snow, and we tied plastic bags round his feet and hands to keep him dry. Matt got ambushed by the perfectly camouflaged Samoyed from next-door, and we built a six foot snowman that scared the living daylights out of our neighbour in the next morning's dawn.

If its still there in the morning, I think I might go build a snowman in the park. Six foot, wonky and slightly scary.

So not doing work again. Because I am tired and zombie-ish and I spent half the morning showing Elaine all my photos and footage of the Josh Ritter gigs last week, and she showed me photos of Nigeria and we listened to recordings of the nuns she stayed with who are phenomenal singers and thus this has all inspired a ramble on the joys of a good gig.

The best way to go to a good gig is to go to a small venue, I always think. Not that REM in Marley Park or Ardgillan Castle is not a good gig (has Stipe ever done a bad gig?) but there's a magic to a small venue that puts things on a different level. I think this is why I love seeing Josh Ritter live so much. Of course, he's fabulous and adorable and really really good at what he does, but I think the places he plays have cemented it for me.

Josh Ritter, playing 'California' in the Empire.
The perfection of a small venue and a good crowd, and most especially a good song.

Because Making Light have been playing 'What's the first news event you remember' and its been the kind of productive week where making dinner has resulted in supergluing my fingernail back together, and I'm really getting sick of tiny Victorian printing, I'm going to have a go at it here.

So.

First things I definitely remember are from around when my sister was born - I'm November 1982, she's September 1984, so I was about two. Maybe a bit younger, because one is definitely summer '84.

• My Dad boosting me through the gap in the wall between our house and my aunt's.
• Talking to the gardener in my aunt's garden. He told me water was 'Adam's Whiskey' and it took me years to figure it out.
  
• Falling out what would be the patio window of our current house, then half-finished, and cutting the chin off myself - I don't remember the fall, I remember Aunt Eileen had her long coat and Cossack hat on, and then I remember someone holding ice cream against my chin to keep the swelling down, and being incredibly cross that I wasn't allowed to eat it. Evidently we hadn't any ice in the freezer.
• Uncle Steven holding the bow on the back of my dress in a death grip at my sister's christening, because I was dancing a jig trying to get up to the front and see what was going on.

Actual news memories are harder, because we didn't have TV, so most of this coincides with the stage at which I was going to Brid after school and watching Newsround.  1987 on, so about five, but some earlier stuff must have made an impact - Chernobyl and Challenger never had to be explained to me later, even though I don't remember seeing anything about them.

• Actually, make that 1985, I remember the creative childminding arrangements which arose from all of these from '85 to the shooting of the policeman in 1993, because it happened outside our school - we heard the shot, Mrs Reilly closed the windows, and we heard the shouting and the sirens anyway.

• Vague memories of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster.
• Lester Piggot's tax problems, and specifically, being stripped of his OBE. I have no idea why, unless it was one of the things I had to ask someone to explain later.
• Definite, clear memories of the Armenian Earthquake and Lockerbie, in December '88 the first because of the Blue Peter appeals, the second I remember seeing on the proper BBC news.
  

I remember more than I thought I did. In terms of things I know I saw or read, rather than was told about years later - I have no idea why Zeebrugge stuck with me when the Kings Cross Fire didn't, for example. I'm guessing it depends on whether or not I was in my aunts house at a time when the BBC or RTE news was on

I love the British Library Reprographics people. Half my newspaper photocopies (all crystal clear on the bits that matter and pretty much perfect everywhere else too) have this sticker:

We regret that this is the best quality reference photocopy that we can produce. Rapid Copy Section.

Such terribly odd people.

The next time the BBC refer to David Irving as a 'historian' I will actually cry. Hysterically. And then will manfully refrain from throwing anything at the TV.

And I shall get back to writing my piece on the Civil Service Gazette in all its glorious Victoriana, and hope that 3Mobile's objection to me as a customer is based on something easily fixable, because I really do need a new phone, and Vodafone are rip-off merchants to beat the band. God, I hate credit reports. I am not sufficiently on the radar to even have one.

And  oh, but Elaine needs to get home soooooon. Freezing! Being kept warm by righteous indignation at the BBC for the combined crimes of calling Irving a historian and bringing back Rose.

****Ok.
We have to do your stupid training programme. Fine. Doing it! Look, doing it! Even though most of them are entirely pointless and I have more than enough work to be getting on with, thank you so very much.

And look. The few courses that are of any use are appearing and disappearing off the available list like bloody pixie dust.
And oh, that course that was a half day is a full day! I dunno,  how about you FUCKING TELL US?
And the room's changed!  That's nice. Think it might have been a bit more useful to, I don't know, maybe tell us BEFORE the session started?
And, just while we're here, its really really rage inducing to look at your training programme and discover that you've been marked absent for a course you went on yesterday.

Jesus Christ. If you insist we must jump through your hoops, don't bloody make it harder than it needs to be. I'm trying to write a thesis here. Between it and my ordinary life I have enough hassle to be getting on with. Fix your damn database, use the email system to tell people what's going on, read your session lists occassionally, and don't fucking mark people absent before you get the class list back. You're allegedly professionals, act like it! And then you won't get irate third years ringing up and ranting at you for twenty minutes on your lunch break. Everybody wins.

Idiots.

***

And breathe. God.

For loneraven's curiosity and my geekiness:

APPENDIX (A).

N.B. – This Table would also include the East India Service additis addendis

 

______	Foreign Office	Home Office	Treasury	Board of Trade	Commisaria	Colonial Office	Chinese Interpreters, future Consuls in China.
Number of vacancies expected	Ten	Eighteen		&c	&c	&c
Age of candidates	19 to 25	17 to 21	17 to 21	17 to 21	&c	&c
Preliminary examination:- Writing-            Arithmetic, &c.     English – Composition (spelling)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
French – Speaking         Pronunciation    Original Composition	- - -	- -	- -	- - -	- - -	- - -	- - -
History and Geography (general)      of Europe    of England of the Colonies	- -	-   -	-   -	-   -	- - -	- - - -
Law – General view (municipal) Inter-national Commercial	- -	-	-   -	-   -		- - -	- - -
Political Economy Principles of taxation	-		-	- -		-	-
Higher English composition, despatches, &c.	-	-	-
Proofs of classical education	A Degree – or an equivalent examination	-	-				-
One extra foreign language, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese	-						-
Writing in cipher -- decyphering							-

'Mary. My pillow's full of crisps.'
'Yes ok; wait, you what now?'

Nothing like doing the Spanish Inquisition act at 2am to put you off small boys for life. I love and adore doing DI, I really do, but when you get 11-14 year olds who think its perfectly ok to say, fill someone else's pillowcase with crisps, or soak a bed, after several lengthy conversation about how you Don't Do Things Which Annoy The Cooks Or The Cleaners, and Don't Do Things I'll Have To Tell The Warden About, resulting in the 2am 'We will stand here until someone owns up' line-up...well, the gibbering hysterics come close. I got more sleep than Pat did though. God. And we were pretty unruly kids, but we never stooped so low as to mess up people's beds. Tearing round the centre like mad things, mass water fights, That One Time With The Crisps, and lying on the beach at ungodly hours, yes, but never actively damaging stuff.

And the weather. Oh man, the weather. Its incredibly hard to teach wind awareness and points of sailing when the wind is so changable that you yourself aren't sure what's going on. Especially when said directional dithering is accompanied by windspeeds that start so light that you rig everything loose, then randomly go well up into a Five and cause your very small, light, students to get yanked suddenly aft as the gust takes the mainsail. These being the points at which I dive for the tiller and take over before horrible things happen.
And the hammering rain! So nice.

And its mildly worrying to realise that the Damien Rice gig Josh remembered seeing me at, that made him make sure to come and tell me to listen to it when I got home, was nearly five years ago. It doesn't feel like five years ago. It was a good gig. Even if David was mildly scared of Josh, who looks kind of like a pirate, if pirates wore Che Guevara t-shirts, and were architects. And had startlingly cute and obedient children.

Not sure what to make of that Radio 1 set, actually. I realise that festival recordings aren't the best thing to take the vibe of an artist from, but I'm really not impressed with the Damien-without-Lisa sound. A lot of his songs are duets, and they don't work half as well solo. Especially '9 Crimes' and 'I Remember'. '9 Crimes' doesn't make sense without the two voices, and 'I Remember' was so clearly written to fit her voice and range - he can't actually hit all the notes in the first song. And I'm intrigued that he's taken to singing 'My Baby Shot Me Down' at the end of the second 'I Remember' song. He's not a subtle guy, I wonder who he was fighting with.

I mean really, isn't listening to the audiobook of The Truth, a book all about newspapers and the press, a bit of a sad thing to do while writing about newspapers and the press? Except, I turned it on last night because it was the top of the playlist, and at 12am I am actually that lazy. Weird but kinda neat. Except for being incredibly sad.

Audiobook is mostly just an attempt to obliterate the epilogue of Deathly Hallows, of which I Do Not Approve.
I really want to hear our Sophie's opinion. She's the target age group and she has Views on being patronised by authors and publishers. It could be amusing.

Right. Back to the melodrama of Victorian political reporting. Seriously, I know people didn't lilke Northcote-Trevelyan, but making comparisons to Satan? Mildly excessive.

And oh, the random capitals. And random French. And Latin. And Greek, that hasn't shown up on the photocopies well enough to be deciphered. *Word 2007 whimpers and hides*

Yeesh, why is it so cold? Tis June, you'd expect to be able to get away with less than three layers of clothes.

Right. Using this to organise self into semi-productivness.

To Do:
Finish Morning Chronicle.
Start CS Gazette.
Email supervisor about research plans and submitting papers.
Email Galway.
Email Newcastle for info on Trevelyan papers.
Check out ferry/train fare to London on chance that its cheaper and less aggravating than Stanstead.
Right.

And wrap Father's Day stuff.
And ring Anne about stealing her youngest son for a day or two.
And get as much stuff as humanly possible over to the new house before the London Horde arrives.

Lets see how much gets done by Monday.

And DO NOT think about how am missing Dr Who, no.

Yeah. Didn't do much work all weekend.
Or Friday, come to it. Went rollerblading on the towpath though, and that was pretty.



There was the Union on Friday night too, when I got so tired and keely-over that we went home early.

There was sleeping in rather badly on Saturday, and then trying to get into the office to print stuff off, and the office keypad being completely and utterly defunct. But it was OK because KeithyKeith rescued me and let me print stuff in Physics instead. Best Keith ever!

So we went to the park, and lay about in the sun and occasionally got smacked upside the head by footballs. As you do. Should have picked somewhere more tree-covered to sit, probably. And when it got too cold we went back and 

  And the boys took the piss, as you do, when someone is a) being silly and b) watching dodgy children's sci-fi. And then we watched bits of whatever films were on. Daredevil is really a very bad film. Although clearly Colin Farrell was having a lot of fun being Bullet. And if Gerald ever quotes it again I may actually have to kill him. Terrible dialogue!

And Sunday was the fancy fry day. Seriously. We got really really posh sausages. The kind with the little star and 'Tesco's Finest' on them. Very nice they were too. Will not need to eat for the rest of the week...

*sigh*  http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007600.html#007600 I thought TNH was a sensible person. Maybe not. Don't encourage the crazies, folks, just don't. Very few people want to see other people's children breastfeeding all over the show (apart from anything else, hello people, showing your kid breastfeeding all over the internet? They will hate you). Its that simple. Also, is LJ's site and code and they can do what they like. Nudity in default icons is not allowed. At all. Very simple. Change it and SHUT UP ALREADY.

*also sigh*
Dear report on 7/7/05 bombing people, the emergency services in a bomb situation do not give a flying fuck about anyone who is a) uninjured and b) not getting in their way because they are incredibly busy with the people who are a) injured and b) in their way. Catch yourselves on. They're there to save lives and get everyone out of danger, not hold their hands. Also please remember that London's emergency services haven't had to deal with that scale of havoc in oh, 60 years? They did amazingly well.

Dear BBC, stop giving the Fire Service a hard time about the length of time their responses took on a day with such complete and utter screaming traffic chaos. Kudos to the Fire cheif for giving them such a wondrfully 'drop dead' glare and explaining it all in very. short. sentences.

And now, I go do work.

But I did have a fun weekend. Sailing in force 6 wind is not, I realise, everyone's idea of fun, but it is. It really is! Especially when its not actually mid-November and incipient hypothermia is less of an issue.

And its quite nice to suddenly realise that your Senior Instructor considers you perfectly competent to deal with a teeny boat, high winds, heavy swell and a terrified 15-year-old. Also slightly unnerving, when he lines up his instructors and goes 'Right, Paddy, Richard, Mary, you three go first and see how it goes.' Its not so long since I was the terrified student. OK. Eight years. Still doesn't feel like it. Actually, if you throw some of the guys who taught us into the mix, I'm still the terrified student. I don't care what anyone says, the best way to sail a catamaran is not with one hull sky-high. Its just isn't.

Its less nice to realise that your spectacular capsize less than thirty foot offshore has been captured on video. Especially when the cameraman cheerfully yells 'Can you do that again?'. The fact that coming inshore, you do it again, and the swell chucks you up against the jetty just as you get it back up is only a bonus in that he's got too scared by then and gone home. The crew-falling-out-of-the-boat thing on the other hand, is just hysterically funny. Especially when two of you lose crew at the same time in the same place and do a beautifully non-choreographed pick-up.

Pity the adrenaline rush wore off about half three on Sunday and I keeled over for the rest of the day...

In other news, one nice house is now in competition with the other nice house and if I get any more indecisive I may lose my mind. Eep.
So I will go do some more work and just not think about it. Yes.

Seriously. Out of the five white items that have just gone into the machine four had to have close encounters of the Vanish kind, to deal with the close encounters of the coffee kind...

The allegations that I need either a bib or a baby cup are kinda true. Oh dear.

Also, RTD needs to stop writing episodes, and Steve Moffat needs to write more.

And I need to find a way to un-orange-juice my laptop so the keyboard works properly.

And ending Green WIng like that was evil! Poor Mac. Poor Caroline. Maybe poor Guy. Definitely poor Karen. OK, it really ends with a Christmas episode. Tch. Cheating. Six months!

Um. Its snowing.
Its mid-March.
And its snowing.
Did we turn into Canada overnight or something?

At least I have a few days more than I thought for my lit review anyway.

Man. Snow the day before St Patricks. Never seen that.
If its still ike this tomorrow I will be very amused. All those poor optimists organising barbecues...

Are all bastards.
All of them.

Someone, somewhere,needs to start asking serious questions about the English and Scottish universities.
I want to see how you justify turning down a straight A, 90% average grade student with a ton of community service and hospital work experience. I really want to see it. And it had better be good.

BASTARDS!

No regionalisation my ass. Poor kid jumped through all the damn hoops to get into medicine and they turn her down. This is one pissed off big sister sitting here. I hope she get Trinity. And then writes to the wankers across the water and lets them know.

*wants to go beat up admissions departments*
**wants to kill UCAS for being a supremely shitty system of allocation*

Well, i think its a thunderstorm.
If it isn't, then the library tower is slowly collapsing around my head.
I hope its thunder.

ETA: OK, its definitely a thunderstorm. A real big, close thunderstorm. No rain yet though.
Wowie. Make that right overhead. I'm going to ditch the computing I think.

I just can't dodge the fixtures the way I used to.
Glorious £2 sized bruise on my knee that goes right to the bone.
In interesting shades of purple and red.
I'm thinking skirts are out for the next week.
And ibroprufen is my friend!

But it was nice to be back sailing, and to just fall back into the way we all carry on together. Even though Ed and Ryan have both grown alarmingly. And are under the impression that tackling somone during football means 'grab by both arms, throw on the ground and hold there until ball has been secured for my side'. That hurts.

Going to Durham tomorrow. Help. Not only have I a horrific amount of stuff to get through, I also have to beg mercy from my boss since there's no way in hell I'm able to work Thursday. Not going to be pretty.