Quietly & Safely Insane

Wherein I am still not dead.

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 10:07:12 GMT

Well, fuck. Where did March come from?

Hello, Dreamwidth. It's been a while. How are you?

I have been in one of those unfortunate cycles where, having run around madly trying to do things, you collapse in a spectacularly pathetic manner and - as the cartoon bluebirds tweet merrily around your head - you realise you've actually achieved fuck all.

Some things have happened. In no particular order:

I had a bone scan for this low vitamin D stuff. The nurses were perplexed as to why - given the fact I fall so much and my levels were so low - I was not a pile of floppy flesh and broken limbs. I said I was used to falling, and then proved my point by passing out when I got off the scanner and faceplanting into the lino.

Houndy Max terrified me by pulling a muscle in his back end. At first, I thought he'd cracked his pelvis, so it was a relief it wasn't that. He got a week of solid rest on an inflatable double air bed, but felt fine again after two days, so I had to sit with him in a head lock and bribe him liver treats to prevent him running around like a lunatic. All better now.

I met with my local Member of Parliament regarding the whole royalties-for-people-in-receipt-of-sickness-benefits thing. It is epically fucked up, and I will be posting the fifth part of Fights With Authority shortly. I was halfway through typing it up when my browser crashed, and the draft post hasn't saved, so boo. Seriously, though... this is what-the-actual-fuck territory.

I came in as a runner-up in the Bloody Parchment short story comp! My story, Courting Seraphs, will appear in the winner/finalists' anthology Bloody Parchment: The Root Cellar and other stories, to be published later this year by eKhaya (Random House Struik). I also have a story, The Weeping Blade, in the forthcoming anthology from Dark Continents Publishing, Dark Harvest, and a total of about nine stories spread across the lesbian and gay volumes of the latest in the Mammoth Book of... erotica series, out this year from Constable & Robinson/Running Press, but those don't have my pen name on them.

It looks like we'll also be moving soon, so there's that too. Wasn't expecting it. So that's fun. Everyone knows how fun trying to find dog-friendly rentals is. Had a couple of offers on estate tenancies so far, which would be lovely, but there's rural, and then there's so rural that it's an hour's journey to the nearest place that connects to a branch line train station and - when you don't drive and rely on taxis - that is a leeeetle too pricey. Still, watch this space. Someone may spontaneously combust with stress in it. And that would be worth watching, yes?

Anyway, in conclusion, I'm sorry I haven't been around. I know I owe emails and whatnot to people, and I've missed catching up on what everyone is posting. This is the first time I've been back on since Christmas, so bear with me while I catch up. Need to get things underway over at TWL, too. STUFF. STUFF AND THINGS. OH YES.

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Kafka - A Country Doctor / Kōji Yamamura

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:01:44 GMT

This is all manner of fabulous: a short anime by Kōji Yamamura (2007 - yes, I'm slow on the uptake) of Kafka's story A Country Doctor. Not surprised it's garnered so many awards. Website lives here.

Found this via openculture.com.

Right. Off to clean house. Yay. My enthusiasm knows no beginning.

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The Cramps - Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 11:43:58 GMT

Another one from the greatest rock and roll marriage of all time:

Lux Interior always claimed this song was inspired by Marcel Duchamp's Nu descendant un escalier n° 2, although Wikipedia tells me the painting's title uses the masculine gender (why yes, my post-medieval French does suck that much), which makes me wonder whether Lux and/or Ivy didn't know that, or just didn't give a fuck.

Either way, the song - and this video - always make me smile mightily, if only for the line "it was a naked girl right in my face / high class culture all over the place", and all the little references that always managed to sneak into a Cramps performance.

Also, it makes me wonder about referentialism. There's a surprising amount of music, film, literature, and culture that depends in one way or another on referring to something else, whether overtly through covering, sampling, homage to, inspiration by, or just plain old lifted bits, not to mention reaction to social events and climates, and I often wonder how much an understanding of those connections is integral to our understanding of the end product. The most widespread aspect of this recently has probably been (post-)post-modern cultural processing of "retro", "vintage", "nostalgia", and any other encompassing term to define things picked and chosen from a specific time period.

Now, obviously, the passage of time screens history through different lenses. We remember different things collectively, and successive events colour history in ways that will also continue to change with time. Yet, simultaneously, we see active attempts to define time periods through identifiers of fashion and culture, effectively reducing our understanding to a codified shorthand or collection of symbols. Also, naturally, relevancy shifts and alters, and I often wonder what that means for the nature of depth in cultural media. After all, few general readers pick up the jokes in Shakespeare that, at the time of writing, were politically current... and probably almost as few note the snide digs in Conan Doyle towards penny dreadfuls and "yellow-backed" novels. These are things that - quite rightly, because no one can know everything - become relegated to footnotes or indices, or in-jokes for students of the specific genre.

Nu descendant un escalier n° 2 remains probably one of the most famous Modernist paintings in existence, but I wonder all the same: if you don't know that, and you watch Lux Interior mugging at the camera in a red catsuit and stilettos, does it mean any less? How much is meaning altered by the kind of connectivity that, in literature, we call intertextuality? And does any of it matter?

Thoughts?

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In which I am not dead. Again.

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 14:49:02 GMT

Forgive me, Dreamwidth, for I have sinned. I dropped off the face of the earth once again, and it was very poor form, because I managed to pretty much miss having been nominated for the Love Meme that jjhunter was running... and I wanted to say thank you to those that said nice things. You know who you are, and so do I, and you are awesome.

Had I not been so late to the party, I'd have returned the favour. However, allow me to say that I feel profoundly grateful for all the interesting, enlightening, entertaining, lovely people that I've met and continue to meet here.

I'm not terribly good at "externalising", to quote the term we Britishers used to lampoon Americans for employing with regard to actually expressing feelings - because, I mean really, old chap, we're British don'tcherknow - but I do mean it very sincerely.

I admit, I have been a little down recently, following quite a difficult and very tiring few months. More medical issues to add to the pot - a severe vitamin D deficiency has cropped up, which the doctor somehow managed to miss (given it took them eight weeks to realise they'd given me incorrect test results and my vit. D level is 12 mnoL, not 75, I am not entirely surprised) - for which I am now on therapeutic dose supplements, with a bone density scan (waiting list pending) to look forward to. Hurrah. Anyway, I'd like to think that's what's been bringing me so far down, and, on the plus side, these high-dose supps may provide a general symptomatic improvement in pain and fatigue levels, and maybe fasciculations too, so... yay? Yay.

Haven't been updating most of the things I usually update - yes, I suck, I know - but I'm trying to get back to that. I was invited onto Wattpad this week, too, so updates may be following on that soon. Also need to replace the home network, as the router's gone senile, so this surge of activity may lapse into silence again if I manage to mess that up... wish me luck.

Other than that, I have been making festive fare and pickling like a crazy person, so will post the promised things about moar cheese, rhubarb chutney, and Christmas-Pudding-That-Is-Actually-Not-Vile asap.

In other news, some of the house stuff got done. We took horrendous advantage of amazon_of_exeter's good nature, and made him lay (STRIPY!) stair carpet and build The Biggest Motherfucking Bookcase of All Time. I think we killed him, but at least we have somewhere to put all the books. Whee!

So, that's me. Hanging onto the carpet in case I fall off, but still thinking of you. intothewood has been having quite the time of it in recent months, and I know things haven't exactly been beds of roses for some of the rest of you either, but I hope things are gradually sliding back onto an even keel.

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Fun with Cheese.

Sat, 08 Sep 2012 17:08:26 GMT

I picked up a dinky little ring-bound book from Lakeland a couple of weeks ago: How to Make Soft Cheese by Gerard Baker.

Long story short: I'd made labne and so forth before, but always steered away from anything involving rennet as, while the concept of installing a cheese press sounded like fun, I simply don't have the room. Boo. The premise of Baker's short collection of recipes is to show people how easy it is to make non-matured soft cheeses in the average kitchen and, I can report, it even works in my teeny tiny one. Also, cheese. Yummy cheese. Hurrah.

Basically, you take your milk, heat it, and add either rennet or acid (lemon juice, cider/white wine vinegar etc.) to precipitate the separation of curd and whey because, as Stephen Fry once said, cheese is basically milk that has "gone off big time stylee". The whey produced by adding rennet is known as "sweet" whey, and is bloody useful (use it in sorbets, ice creams, smoothies, tea bread, scones, sauces... pretty much as any replacement for liquid. I wouldn't recommend bothering to make ricotta unless you have a minimum of 3 gallons. Ask me how I know.), while the other, "acid", whey can be used as a (cooled/diluted) ericaceous plant feed, or for soaking pulses, beans etc. prior to cooking, boiling rice, pasta and so forth.

The final form of cheese you get depends broadly on a) the milk you use b) temperature and c) what you do with the curd mass once it's separated. With that in mind, I present:

( Fun with Cheese: Halloumi - including pics )

( Mozzarella )

I did also make feta, but things happened and cheese was eaten, and I didn't take any pics. But it was extremely nice, like very expensive deli feta, so well worth the extra fiddling. I will do another batch, try to take pictures before it is all mysteriously et, and update with a receipt soon. *grin*

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Signal boost: 3rd Annual Bloody Parchment Short Story Competition

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 09:01:35 GMT

For the scribes of horror, fantasy, speculative and dark or weird fiction amongst you! I've posted this elsewhere, but - seeing as I'm a bit late anyway and this has actually been running since July - figured I'd boost here too. :)

The third annual Bloody Parchment Short Story Competition is now open, and running until the (very apt) closing date of OCTOBER 31ST. There is no entry fee or anything daft like that, the competition is open internationally, and judges are seeking stories across a broad spectrum within the theme of Halloween, horror, urban fantasy or dark fantasy. Yes, weird fiction abounds! Entries must not exceed 3,500 words, and must be both complete (not extracts of longer works) and previously unpublished. Full guidelines are available here and there are additional guidelines on how not to irritate the judges here. *grin*

To give you some examples of former winners, the first Bloody Parchment anthology is also currently available for FREE download via Goodreads.

First prize of this year's competition includes one round of free professional edits on a novella or novel-length work, and the top thirteen finalists will also be published in an anthology to be released in anticipation of the 2013 South African Horrorfest, which brings me to the exciting part.

Bloody Parchment, in their capacity as the literary arm of the annual SA Horrorfest, are very excited to welcome eKhaya, the digital imprint of Random House Struik, onboard the annual competition. The anthology comprising last year's finalists - Bloody Parchment: Hidden Thing, Lost Things, and other stories - is out now, published by eKhaya/Random House, and obviously it's quite a coup for Horrorfest to have one of the Big Six involved. This bodes well for the future!

Submissions need to go to (( nerinedorman [@] gmail [DOT] com )) as .doc or .rtf attachments, and please do familiarise yourselves with the guidelines before submitting.

More on the SA Horrorfest at:
http://www.horrorfest.info/
and:
http://www.shadowrealminc.com/

Please do feel free to forward this to anyone you think may be interested in entering.

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And hilarity ensued.

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:09:39 GMT

Something incredibly amusing happened, but I'm going to put most of it behind a cut, in case anyone is sensitive about prosthetics, or frank discussion of post-mastectomy stuff, which I know not everybody finds an acceptable launching point for humour.

( Still, this was bloody funny. )

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Inky dinky

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:37:41 GMT

I was going to post this earlier, but events overtook me. Here it is, though: pic of my new tattoo.

Please excuse the peculiar angle and amount of dog hair in this shot. I'd just been terrier-bombed. In fact, you can see Col. Hector Humphrey Hufflebutt III sitting on my feet, as is his wont when I'm trying to do something. For those playing "Guess the Body Part", this is the outer part of my lower left arm... basically following the line of the ulna. Click to embiggen if so wished:

Had this done ~~last Wednesday~~ 4th July (yes, I was the only person anywhere that day not being inked with a bald eagle) at Spike at the Art in Plympton, Plymouth, by Lu, who I just cannot fault as an artist. She was incredibly patient through several weeks of my fannying around with the design, and came up with this heavily stylized take on the spiral goddess motif that uses lots of little visual references, probably more in spite of my original sketch rather than because of it. I'm very, very happy with it - the design hits just the right note for me, and I love the delicacy in the execution of both the lines and the dotwork.

The appointment itself was great. The shop is in a lovely location, and the atmosphere is really nice - very relaxed, comfortable, and professional. Lu is a gem; put me completely at my ease, fun to talk to but just as happy to quietly get on and work. No pressure, all chilled. She trained under shop owner, Mike Hicks, who in addition to some amazing freehand and black-and-grey work, has done some gorgeous carvings that are well worth checking out on the shop website.

You can see more of Lu's portfolio on her blog, http://artsaurus.wordpress.com, and if anyone is looking for a tattoo artist and can get either to Plymouth or one of the conventions she attends, I can't recommend Lu highly enough.

[/end squeeing]

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In memoriam

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:34:10 GMT

( In piam memoriam, Violet Evelyn Joyce Bancroft. 18th December 1926 - 8th July 2012 )

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Slivers of time

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 12:35:50 GMT

Hello Dreamwidth. Forgive me, for it has been umpteen days since my last post. I really need to tidy this journal up, post the things I've written that I haven't posted, and clear out the stuff that should be elsewhere, but... yeah.

Things are taking place in small, disconnected slivers of time at the moment.

In a nutshell, the fambly situations are continuing. We are now nearing the three week mark since the doctor dragged out to my grandparents' little rural armpit of nowhere and told my grandfather that his wife "wouldn't last the night". Obviously, while we're all pleased she's taking her sweet time and not going anywhere until she's good and ready (typical, really; this woman was once escorted out of Harrods by security because she refused to leave when the store was trying to close...), the strain is starting to tell, particularly on my grandfather. It's just a matter of waiting, and that's not easy, although at least she is in no pain and - due to the advanced vascular dementia - has no (discernible) awareness of what's going on.

Other things are still happening, albeit at a tentative and slightly preoccupied pace. amazon_of_exeter was a star this week and not only gave me a lift down from Plymouth, where I went to get my shiny new tattoo (okay, it's not shiny, though the piercer who works out of the studio was the first person to bring dermal divers to the south west, so...), but also cleared out about six metric tons of crap from the garage, which is kind of amazing. There are walls down there I haven't seen in years. And floor space. The garage has a floor. Who knew?

Obviously, all that watching other people work was very tiring, and I'm now comprehensively flaked for a few days, and sitting here looking with suspicion at my to do pile. I have not had my head in the game for the past eighteen months. I know that. Given everything that's been going on - fambly stuff, health stuff, all the business with tribunals and appeals, and most recently my grandmother's illness - that isn't surprising. However, I'm slowly getting a few things done.

I gutted the first compiled draft of my poetry collection, leaving about a third of the poems in. There are some I'm happy with, some I want to rework (again), and some I'm just shutting in a drawer in the hope they'll go away. To the poets among you, how do you deal with those last-minute panics about things you've done? At what point do you determine the final brush stroke and step back? I have no idea, but I know I'm way more sensitive and generally a pain in the butt with my poetry than I am my prose. I should probably head over to the writerslounge to throw this one open; I haven't been as involved as I should. A few of the poems are up on my website, for anyone who wishes to point and laugh. Most of those that will be in the collection are unpublished, but a scattering have been in mags, on various websites, or in exhibition thingies... not that this improves my attitude towards them.

Anyway, I need to get off my arse and finish House of Choices, just as I need to finish reworking the Candy's Store erotica shorts into their new, muscular and exponentially embiggened (not a word; should be) novel format, and give my poor neglected Georgian detective a work over. I haven't even got started on Funk Hole. Then there are the remaining antho and short subs for this summer, and I also got blurb and backmatter forms for Passing Shadows this weekend, so that will be in eds before long. Meep. Back at the beginning of the year, I sort of hoped that, by now, I might have done some of these things, and be on to working on the first book of my Norse-flavoured fantasy thingy, but that will probably be pushed back. Science! Y U no produce 48-hour day?

On the positive side, I have new markets for two things I can't really talk about until I get confirmation of, but yay, and - although it's not been mentioned on her journal, so I hope I'm allowed to say it - I am hyper-pleased for intothewood, who snagged a contract recently. *happydance*

I'm fairly sure I've subjected you all to enough waffling now, so I will get back to editing and staring blankly at the screen when I should be writing. I will also take a picture of my ink, and post that when I can. It's already mostly healed, and I will be enthusing madly about the shop and the artist. Sheer brilliance, and a really comfortable experience.

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Stupid things I have done this week

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 13:43:15 GMT

1. Slice my finger on super-sharp hairdressing scissors.
1a. Realise I have done so, and stick the finger in my mouth while saying "Oh, bugger", forgetting that a deep cut to a finger results in blood pumping, thus a large mouthful of blood.
1b. Also forget that quantities of blood large enough to smell or taste make me go dizzy and fall down (yes, this is a very silly and embarrassing, purely physiological reaction), leading to:
1c. Pass out while trying to apply pressure to my finger, and bleed all over the sink and bathroom floor before actually pulling myself together and cleaning it up.

The most amusing part of this was that the mother, whose hair I was cutting, had two reactions. The first, when I cut myself, was: "What have you done? Have I got a bald patch?". The second came after I announced the encroaching wibbliness, and has to be imagined with a sort of Doppler effect as she high-tailed it down the stairs: "Are you going to throw up? I'm going in case you throw up."

To be fair, she's very emetophobic, but I don't get nauseous with blood. I just go boom, apparently. Very silly. Anyway, it's making typing a bit complicated, which is very useful, as....

2. Agree to put something forward for two more submissions calls, despite not having finished the eight stories I already need to do. The Olympics is one (think sexy athletes in unconventional sports, so I dunno... dressage ponyboy smut, anyone?), and the other is FUCKING CHRISTMAS. C'mon, people. It's the first week of June. I know we have to work ahead for some projects, but really.

3. Go back on last.fm, resulting in:

4. Finally give into temptation and set up a mini blog for my music-related stuff. I imagine I will still spam your reading pages with YouTube videos but, for my wafflings and an even greater amount of Spooky Tooth, Cactus, The Cramps, Marc Bolan, and all manner of associated stuff, you can now go here.

Anyway, I'm going to go and get on with mah pr0nz, while listening to way too much '60s blues revival and watching the Jubilee weekend coverage. (Don't laugh. I'm a very staunch royalist.) I'm fascinated by how they're going to do the river pageant, though - over a thousand vessels. First time we've had one in about three hundred years. Very exciting.

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Red Sebastian

Thu, 24 May 2012 15:33:27 GMT

Eeeeet's digital painting time!

Here be artwork I did for the ebook cover of Chiaroscuro, one of the tales included in Black Ice: collected stories (which is out now, pluggity plug plug-plug). It's a strange little beast of a story: magic realism and Renaissance painting, set against contemporary southwest London. A shy, socially anxious art history student becomes obsessed with a painting of Saint Sebastian, and that obsession effects odd changes in the world around him... not least his relationship with the extremely attractive cashier in his local shop.

There's a lot in the story - themes concerning contemporary multiculturalism, race, modern British Asian identity, the acceptance and embracing of notions of self... plus secular iconography, and fifteenth century carols. No, I'm not kidding.

This picture was inspired by Kishin Shinoyama's 1966 photographic portraits of Yukio Mishima as Saint Sebastian. Click through to go to deviantART where, if you are so minded, it is available as a print.

Excerpt of Chiaroscuro, plus purchase links and other stuffs, lives here:
http://www.annareith.co.uk/chiaroscuro

The story rests heavily on the painting The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, by Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo, which - coincidentally enough - was the subject of my BA dissertation. *cough*totallynotautobiographicalIswearI'mnotinsane*cough* For anyone who's interested, I've also made the dissertation mildly public. Even if you couldn't care less about all the waffling over Florentine humanism, there's a bunch of pretty pictures in the back:

http://www.annareith.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/painanddevotion_pietyofdisplay_annareith.pdf

(very slow loading - large, image-heavy file)

And yes, I did pass the course. ;P

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PROMO: Black Ice: collected stories

Thu, 24 May 2012 10:47:17 GMT

Ta-daaaa!

As ~~threatened~~ promised, here be promotional thingies for my new release, Black Ice: collected stories. There are seven stories here - various combinations of speculative fiction, magic realism, horror, dark fantasy, romance, and associated other permutations of genre. Weird fiction, basically. One of the stories, The Red Man, is available as a free read on my website (it's also up right here on Dreamwidth), and each story is available individually as an ebook, while the full collection can be purchased either in ebook or print format.

If I was any kind of a business person, I would have staggered these releases and done a whole shedload of pre-release marketing and stuff and things, but... yeah. Hey ho. There are free excerpts of each story on my website and, over at Smashwords.com, you can read a percentage of each ebook for free before you decide to buy (you can also download a free ebook of The Red Man with some creepy cover art by yours truly.). Can't say fairer than that, right?

Behind the various cuts are full details, including excerpt and purchase links.

NB: Multiple ebook formats are available from Smashwords, including .epub, .pdf, and Kindle-compatible .mobi. These titles will be available soon through iBookstore, Diesel, B&N, Kobo and other good retailers. Print is currently via Amazon.com or order from your local bookstore. ISBN numbers and Kindle ASINs are provided so you can find these titles through your preferred retailers, plus Goodreads.com and wherever else. Enjoy!

( THE RED MAN: unsettling archaeology and ancient bones. )

( BLACK ICE: On the roof of the world, a rookie trucker is caught at the mercy of an unforgiving nightmare. )

( GLAISTIG OF GLENMUIR: Myths in the Scottish Highlands )

( GHOST OF A KISS: Genius loci on the wild Cornish coast. )

( THIRTEEN MAIDENS: Is it dangerous to dance in a stone circle? )

( THE NIGHT SHIFT: Black-leather-clad elves and the hounds of the Wild Hunt. )

( CHIAROSCURO: An art history student's obsession with a painting of Saint Sebastian effects some very strange changes in his life. )

( BLACK ICE: COLLECTED STORIES - Full Edition )

And we now return you to your regular programming. :)

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Cornershop - Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III

Tue, 15 May 2012 18:38:11 GMT

For absolutely no good reason whatsoever - except to say that I am horribly busy and trying not to keel over - I come bearing a Cornershop video. My goodness, I know, I am aware of music that happened after 1985. Shocking. The consciously retro styling has no sway on my affection for this track at all. No sir. Uh-uh.

No, really. I love Tjinder Singh and the boys, and this cracks me up every time I see it - possibly as much for the background story involving Tjinder's friendship with Oasis ~~gobshite~~ frontman Noel Gallagher resulting in a complete and utter 180 on Cornershop's much-publicised "oh no, we're far too indie for your plebeian rock boogie rubbish" position as anything else, but there you go. Tee hee.

Also, all the stories from Black Ice are now up in multiple ebook formats at Smashwords. I will be promo-ing in the next couple of days, so apologies for that in advance. I am, indeed, the overgrown supershit.

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The fuckery of POD

Mon, 07 May 2012 15:59:16 GMT

Briefly: I am attempting to get this bastard short story collection formatted and up. I am using a POD service for it because 85% of the stories have been previously published under other pseudos and, with the amount of stuff I have to do in the next six months, I really don't want to mess around with trying to sell them individually or as a collection, when I don't have an avenue for them anywhere I'm already published (Yes, that's right: these are all non-smut!), and nobody likes taking previously published work from authors new to their books.

Easy enough, you'd think. HAH!

( Behind the cut: whining, ranting, heel drumming and tantrums. If anyone knows a good and drama-free POD solutions place, please please please comment, before I facepalm so hard the back of my head falls off. )

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Musical Security Blankie

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:34:58 GMT

Hey world, how are you? Checking in very briefly. I've been neglecting Dreamwidth, which is bad. Should be back next week (I hope), after the current chaos quiets slightly. I have a backlog of things to post, not least stuff from PBP, and things regarding a metric ton of dark fantasy/horror fiction.

In the meantime, someone linked me this Bart Baker parody of Nicki Minaj's 'Stupid Hoe' so, being naive and sheltered, I had to check out the original too, because I hadn't seen it.

...Oh, the trauma.

I made myself feel better by watching most of 'Good to See You Again, Alice Cooper' and the tea party medley from 'Born to Boogie' on YouTube, so here is the latter for anyone else who is either as narrow-minded and afraid of change as me, or feels the need of some kind of comfort, and maybe a quiet giggle. T. Rex at their whimsical silliest, and Mickey Finn with jam all over his chin. Also, bearded nun. This was filmed at John Lennon's estate, on almost the same spot as the 'Imagine' video, allegedly. Also contains my favourite arrangement of 'The Slider' EVER. Strings work so well.

My favourite things about this, aside from the obvious, are Geoffrey Bayldon, and Chelita Secunda having a bloody good feed. Go on, girl - pack it in there!

Hope everyone's okay. Off to go clean more house now. Woo?

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Petition Appeal

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:45:07 GMT

I've marked all my previous entries about this subject as protected, but this one's wide open. Please signal boost if you feel you can, or share this link in any way you like.

Recently, following the 2007 Welfare Reform Act, the British government began phasing out Incapacity Benefit - a temporary-to-long-term support for those incapable of work due to ill health.

This is meant to cut the amount of fraudulent claims, and "encourage" people back to work more quickly. However, many people (me included) not only have serious reservations about how these reforms have been instituted, but are now extremely concerned by the way medical assessments for migrating claimants from Incapacity Benefit to the new Employment and Support Allowance are being conducted.

To be awarded ESA, you must have a medical assessment, just as when claiming other sickness benefits. The problem is that these medical assessments are currently being carried out by a private company, Atos Healthcare, which has been contracted by the Department of Work and Pensions, and has been declaring an astonishingly high number of disabled and terminally ill people "fit for work".

Many organisations, such as the Citizens' Advice Bureaux and Disability Information and Action Line (DIAL), as well as charities including the MS Society, the National AIDS Trust, Parkinson's UK, Arthritis Care, Forward M.E., and Crohn's and Colitis Care, have expressed concerns that the current criteria used to assess capability for work by Atos Healthcare and the DWP are ambiguous and incomplete.

Also - and perhaps more disturbingly - there appear to be very high instances of claimants complaining that the medical reports made by Atos Healthcare assessors twist their words, or fundamentally misrepresent their conditions. (I can personally vouch for this!)

Additionally, the DWP is now informing all claimants who wish to appeal that they must do so via tribunal, instead of simply in writing. This is a drawn-out and complex process, all at the expense of the taxpayer.

This HM Government E-Petition moves to have Atos Healthcare's contract - and the whole process of medical assessment and tribunal appeal for sickness benefits - examined in Parliament.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/5828

In order for the petition to be considered for discussion in the House of Commons, it requires 100,000 signatures by 8th August 2012, so please pass the link along to anyone you think may be interested in signing!

Edited to add: You need to be a UK resident to sign, so please forward to all your tea-supping limey friends!

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Music Movie Meme

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:21:25 GMT

All righty. I got this via one of my readers on ff.net, and it provided a deeply pleasing little break from the craptitude of the past week, so I thought I’d share.

The idea is simple. We all know the importance of musical scores in movies, right? Emotionally stirring, evocative of sensations, moods, themes... all that stuff. Here, you’re creating a movie of your life, using just your favourite tunes. Well... the weird shit that piles up in your music library, anyway.

To play, first open your music library (iTunes, Media Monkey, iPod, Winamp, or whatever else you use. If you don’t use a music library... well, dang. This probably won’t work so well with Spotify, last.fm, etc., but you could try it). This is your entire, unfiltered library - no special selections, no playlists. Everything.

Make sure your library is on shuffle. Press play and, for each of the numbered plot points on the list that follows, fill in the song that’s playing. Press ‘next’ for each new plot point, but no skipping, and no cheating!

Are you brave enough to expose your guilty musical pleasures to the world... or try to make sense of the soundtrack that emerges?

The lights go down, the popcorn’s rustling... what’s playing as the movie of your life starts to roll?

( Behind the cut: Song lists etc. C'mon. Come play. It's fun, I swear. )

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Paypal and censorship - your internet needs YOU!

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 21:52:26 GMT

Update to this: Paypal reversed their decision! Victory for free speech etc., though it remains to be seen whether other payment processors will follow suit, and whether the card companies behind this will also act. More here.
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I fully admit I'm slow off the mark with this post (an entire week of ugh. Hurrah.), but for those of you who may either not have seen this, or may be unaware of all the details, lemme recap:

During February, Paypal handed ultimatums to several well-known ebook vendors, demanding that titles containing certain content be removed from their catalogues, or Paypal would refuse to continue operating as a payment gateway for said vendors.

Of course, the internet leapt on this as an attack of censorship, and it would be easy for me to simply echo those (very valid) concerns, but it's actually more complex than that.

( Please read this. Please pass the info and links on, please consider signing petitions and writing emails and actual letters to people, because this shit is important. ) TL;DR?

These moves to censor legal fiction should not go unchallenged. The financial corporations behind these recent ultimatums should not be allowed to dictate what is and is not available in the marketplace based on a nebulous and ill-defined ‘moral code’ that further entrenches the double standards regarding sex and violence in society.

Change.org petition

Thanks for reading, and please pass this message on.

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Couponpalooza: FREE BOOKS!

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 12:47:16 GMT

I am mainly comatose today, after medical assessment thingy, but if anyone would like to pass this on, please do:

Dead in Time and Thirteen Maidens are both completely FREE until March 10th when you use coupon RE100 at Smashwords.com. Linkies:

Dead in Time: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/45838
Thirteen Maidens: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/44299

This is part of Smashwords' Read an Ebook Week promotion, so there's a ton of other stuff partially or completely discounted. Please tell your friends. I'd also urge people to read up on SW's response to the Paypal censorship debate, which I will be posting about when the pretty lights stop.

In the meantime, go get my books for free. If you like 'em, maybe leave me a nice review somewhere? Yes. This is exactly how bad I am at self-promotion.

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Checking in. Where's my sea view?

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:33:40 GMT

So, I've been quiet for a while. You were probably relieved. Several long stories short: geriatric double incontinence is not fun; the mother's lymphatic compression bandaging was only semi-effective, which is kind of a bitch when it necessitated getting her to Truro every day for a week (5am starts: I love you!); and, if you often fall over due to dizziness and mild black-outs, try not to hang around at the top of a flight of stairs, especially when you're woozy because you just got out of the shower.

I'm okay. Trying to catch up after a few weeks of chaos and relentless crap, and having that thing where nothing is as simple as it ought to be, because you need it done yesterday. Ugh.

Right now, I am trying to simultaneously respond to eighty-four emails, shave 1600 words off a mss (damn you, wordage! *shakes fist*) and do more fucking .epub formatting, which I may possibly have mentioned that I hate, loathe, and detest. And then there's the fall-out from the Paypal censorship thing, which I will be back with further waffle on in the next couple of days. Things are... busy, let's say.

In the meantime, I bring two Aerosmith videos (don't judge me. I needed the smiles.) and I ask only this. Pink came out in 1997. This video is bloody brilliant, and yet it makes me wonder how society has managed to either go backwards in its notions of embracing diversity, or at least fail to come any further forward.

Also, this week, I cut my hair (I've never liked going to hairdresser, and I just started the 'Curly Girl' method thingy of SLS-free cleansers and botanical whatnots, which has made a dramatic difference in just two washes, but leaves me annoyed, because I feel it's a common sense thing I should have worked out for myself. Hey ho.). It's about a foot shorter than it was, and I currently vaguely resemble Joe Perry circa Pump, at least in the barnet department.

Now, if I could just play like that, I'd be happy.

Right. Back I go to reformats and email. And not punching, verbally maiming, or actually killing people, which I've been doing extremely well at recently, despite the manifold temptations to the contrary.

How's everyone else?

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Sherlock. Because this.

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:55:27 GMT

Anyone else been watching the (reasonably) recent second series of the Beeb's Sherlock? Loved both so far. I admit, I've been a slightly dabbly Sherlockian for a while - I own a monograph that purports to prove a theory about Holmes' coke injection method (called, naturally enough, Subcutaneously, My Dear Watson. Hee!), and I love the stories for their gloriously silly Victorian pop culture refs - but it has amused me to watch the internet explode with a new generation of fandom. I'm not quite sure how it ends up with this ~~no, I do know; I just don't want to think about it~~, but I'd love this pic even if it wasn't fan art featuring the concept of Ben Cumberbatch's thighs.

via chrono-explosive.tumblr.com. Man, I wish I could draw like that.

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My peculiar ideas and lack of understanding: let me show you them.

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:50:05 GMT

So, I've been watching A Century of Fatherhood over the past few weeks. Interesting three-part series, albeit rather gushy and simplistic, in the way of TV documentaries that poke gently at the academic principles they're examining, but never do more than vaguely frame them.

I admit, I’ve found it hugely interesting, though I think I've come at it from a slightly idiosyncratic viewpoint. I don’t really know, so I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on this.

The series was massively and unashamedly biased from a male perspective, which made my inner feminist very cranky. However, my inner post-feminist (who is probably a bit more outer than my inner feminist) found it a refreshing and rather necessary look at issues of domestic life and social perspectives of gender from a male view, because—please don’t beat me with copies of Sex & Violence—I believe that, in the main, men’s viewpoints have been grossly disregarded in this area.

There is absolutely room for more study of fathers, fatherhood, and the male role in social and domestic history. Traditionally, any discussion of changing roles in parenting, and the history of the home over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been, at some level, a discussion of women’s issues, women’s liberation, and/or women “on the home front” during the First and Second World Wars. Obviously, while the massive shifts in women’s liberation—and society in general—cannot and should not be ignored, it does mean we all too often adhere to accepted stereotypes and received knowledge without engaging with its sources, or challenging those assumptions.

One of the key things the first programme in the series pointed up, for example, was that working class men at the turn of the twentieth century were, in the majority, not the drunken brutes of film and literature, who never showed any emotion beyond uncontrolled and furious beatings (as the Temperance Movement would have had people believe). Studies were quoted that demonstrated men took an active role in the raising and nurturing of children, and the phrase “wait ’til your father gets home” was turned on its head, not as a threat of corporal punishment and anger, but as the far more meaningful fear of a child disappointing a much-loved parent, time with whom was an important and jealously guarded commodity.

Now, I hope most, if not all, the people reading this will be able to agree with the reviews I've read of the series, which basically came down on the side of saying: “What a lot of bollocks. Having a three-part documentary to say that men enjoy fatherhood is akin to a series of programmes explaining the purpose of oxygen for breathing. What a Statement of the Bleedin' Obvious.”

I'd agree, to an extent. As I said, it was extensively cozy, gushy viewing, albeit with some very interesting talking heads (including a woman called Dick, who ditched the name Barbara when she decided to become a mountaineer, just like her dad).

Admittedly, much of the second and third episodes I’ve either missed chunks of or had to read via interrupted subtitles, as the mother was yelling at the television quite a lot. However, as the series meandered on to the shifting tides of the mid-twentieth century, and then, last night, into the ’80s and ’90s, and so-called “new” fatherhood, I realised I was left with an interesting set of rather more personal questions.

The thing is, I’ve never had a father. It’s not something I was consciously aware of for a very long time, and neither was I aware of the fact I really didn’t (or don’t, I suppose, because this is probably a continuing thing) know what they do, or what they’re for.

( I’m going to wurble now, so I quite understand if you want to wander off and do something more interesting than read this bit. No? Sure? Well, I warned you. )

As I’ve grown older, I’ve started to find it bothers me more. Not in the oft-talked of “hole in my life” kind of way bemoaned by some people… I think it’s more to do with me disliking not being able to understand something, or worrying that I don't understand it, even if I think I do, and feeling vaguely concerned that my perceptions of fatherhood are, at some level, based on precisely the kind of received perceptions that A Century of Fatherhood has been fuzzily challenging.

The bottom line, I suppose - or at least I hope - is that all people are individuals. Enforcing binary or constrictive assumptions of gendered roles (or of gender itself) on people is shallow and basically meaningless: i.e. in saying, for example, “real men aren’t afraid to cry”, we are subverting the stereotype that “real men don’t cry” into a version of itself that is just as restrictive, instead of addressing the fact that men, like any other group of human beings, are not a homogeneous unit.

Of course, it’s more complex than that. Social conventions, and the myriad cultural influences of any given time and place will play into it. Different generations arrive at different zeitgeists and viewpoints, and for many different reasons. Within that, people may choose to follow or buck trends, or tread a different path entirely.

What I wonder, though, is how far my own lack of a father has informed my views? Has it done any number of other things to me? Is it responsible for my lingering desire to have a wiener, despite being pretty much cisgender (or at least only a tiny little bit genderqueer)?

I know we’re all the sum of our experiences—and a goodly number of other things—but it does still bother me to an extent that this is one thing I’m completely and utterly in the dark on, at least in terms of personal stuff to draw from.

I have no idea. Frankly, I’m not even sure it matters. But, I do find it fascinating, and I would love to know what other people think. So, come on. Be brave.

Zit on my couch, und tell me about deine Vater, ja?

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Artwork: You Should Have Seen the Other Guy

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:09:14 GMT

Something I was fiddling with today, during the laborious process of fixing the router. Because there's always room for more fully clothed women in fantasy art, amirite?

Not really sure what I was doing, to be honest. Some kind of ruminative post-battle moment for a... I don't know... mercenary adventurer? Practically attired pirate? The only thing I'm really sure of is that I want her boots.

As ever, rendered in DAZ Studio 3, post-work in GIMP. I did quite a bit of retouching and hand-painting, and I'm pretty pleased with the way things like the grime on the fingernails and the highlights on the jewellery turned out. Bloodstains are a bit ropey, and there are other bits I'm now looking at and wondering about, but I achieved my goal of messing with depth of field, and not just scrawling on things like a toddler ~~on crack~~ with a crayon and a handful of raisins.

Click to embiggen:

( Untouched render behind the cut for comparion. )

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PBP 2012: Balefire

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:54:47 GMT

Oops! Late this week, though it won’t be the last time, I’m sure. Spent a large proportion of the past three days helping new neighbour settle her panicky Dachshund pup; large quantities of DAP and Tellington have been involved. Amazing how much noise can come out of a tiny dog, but she seems to be calming.

Anyway, I digress.

I’m taking balefire as the topic for this post. It’s an interesting thing, I think, both as an example of something that has come to be a part of defined ritual practice despite its fragmentary origins, and also as a thread that connects us to the past with surprising clarity.

( Nine sacred woods, signal fires, and the changing meaning of beacons. )

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