wychwood: You are very mad. I like it. Please carry on. (gen - very mad)
[personal profile] wychwood
Interminable September progresses slowly towards its end! The concert went OK - I pre-emptively sat for the bit I went faint in last time, and was fine. I have eaten fourteen portions of the pasta I made. I have also done 13.5 hours of visa checking so far; the queues have been enormous. On the other hand, the days do go by very fast - either I'm in a tent checking visas or I'm in the office trying to deal with all the small fires that have erupted while I was in the tent.

I've been less bothered this year by the fact that all the students were born in years I remember clearly from adulthood, but I have found myself repeatedly discombobulated by checking passports that expire in 2034, like what sort of ridiculous future space-year is that.

In the middle of all this, we've just been informed that we are no longer allowed to use the form-making software we use for various things. "Switch to Approved Alternative; it's really very easy to use!" they tell us, as though there hasn't been considerable pressure over the last year or two to move everything to Approved Alternative already, so that the only things left on there are things that can't be moved for reason of various technical limitations with Approved Alternative. That's great that it's allegedly easy to use, colleague! But will it allow people who are not already students to upload documentation for their assorted applications, because so far no one has been able to make it do that!!

I bought a travel pass for the week, since I'm travelling enough days that it pays for itself, and so far the best bit is that you don't have to wait for paper to download before you go to the ticket barrier. Particularly because the reception in the station building is terrible.
selenak: (Young Elizabeth by Misbegotten)
[personal profile] selenak
German-French channel ARTE also put up the complete Wolf Hall, so I was able to watch the six parter they did based on Hilary Mantel's third Cromwell novel at last. What I thought of the novel itself, its plusses and minuses and how it deals with the history, you can read here, so this review is mostly about how it fares as a book adaptation and tv miniseries.

Spoilers have heretical opinions on Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell )
wychwood: Sinclair won't yield (B5 - Sinclair not to yield)
[personal profile] wychwood
72. Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone - Benjamin Stevenson ) A great gimmick, but I didn't like the protagonist enough to stay with it.


73. Gathering Moss - Robin Wall Kimmerer ) I do have some arguments with this book, but it's honestly fascinating.


74. Buried Deep and Other Stories - Naomi Novik ) A delightful set of stories - including one in her new world, which I'm looking forward to seeing once it's out!


75. The Private Lives of the Saints - Janina Ramirez ) Power, politics, and prayer; early mediaeval saints were very powerful people, and could be used in many ways in life and death, and Ramirez did an interesting job of looking at some examples of that.


76. Life on Earth - David Attenborough ) There's a reason these series (books) are such classics.


77. Lake of Souls - Ann Leckie ) Leckie does so many different things, and I like almost all of them.


78. Saturnalia - Lindsey Davis ) I think it's probably me, but I just did not enjoy this.


79. The Cricket Term - Antonia Forest ) I have a complicated relationship with these books, but I do enjoy them.


80. A City on Mars - Kelly and Zach Weinersmith ) I knew that Elon Musk's alleged Mars colony was in no way a viable prospect in this decade, but I hadn't understood quite how much work is absolutely still needed. A must-read for anyone who thinks living in space would be cool.


81. The Moonlight Market - Joanne Harris ) Sort of... disappointing? Harris is a pretty big name, but I've not been terribly impressed thus far.


82. The Far Pavilions - MM Kaye ) This was lush and beautiful and astonishingly compelling for something this long.


83. All Systems Red - Martha Wells ) A good start to one of my favourite series.


84. Evelina - Fanny Burney ) Politeness should not require people to put up with violent assaults! It's OK to say "no" and stick to it!!


85. Batman: Wayne Family Adventures vol 1 - CRC Payne and Starbite ) An absolute delight; looking forward to reading more of this!
astrogirl: (Missy)
[personal profile] astrogirl
Since authors have been revealed now, I can admit to writing this little thing for the Just Married exchange:

Title: Maybe This Time
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Relationships: Twelfth Doctor/Missy
Rating: Apparently I rated it Teen, but it might not even merit that much.
Summary: Doctor/Master divorces: one. Annulments: several. Marriages: it seems even they've lost count. But, hey, at least this marriage wasn't their fault! Well, OK. It was only indirectly their fault.
Tags: Accidental marriage(s), Annulment(s), previous Doctor/Master divorce, Banter, Missy's time in the Vault, Humor, A little bittersweet at the end
Length: ~2600 words
Author's Notes: Written for natequarter for the Just Married exchange, for the absolutely delightful prompt suggestion of "accidentally got married yet again and are trying to annul the latest marriage, but can't get it done because all their other marriages keep on getting in the way."

Maybe This Time

Miss Austen (Miniseries)

Sep. 20th, 2025 02:21 pm
selenak: (Max by Misbegotten)
[personal profile] selenak
Miss Austen: is a delightful four part miniseries. Now with the exception of the excellent Miss Austen Regrets, featuring Olivia Williams as an older Jane A., biographical media on Jane Austen has suffered from the usual flaw of biopics or bio series focusing on female authors, i.e. insisting on inflicting plots of their most popular work on their life. Miss Austen also avoids this, not least by the fact the titular Miss isn’t Jane, it’s her older sister Cassandra, played in middle age by a superb as usual Keeley Hawes and in flashbacks when young by SinnØve Karlsen, who is so versatile that despite having seen her being very good as Clarice Orsini, Lorenzo de’ Medici’s wife in Medici and superb most recently as Bayta in Foundation’s third season, I didn’t recognise her until googling her. (In addition to great acting, I blame the regency outfit and hairstyle in the flashbcks. *g*) Jane Austen is played by Patsy Ferran who is also great, both when being mischievous and witty, passionate about writing and her sister, and depressed (for various reasons, not least the early lack of success). In fact, this miniseries has led me to the conclusion that Jane Austen is like Benjamin Franklin in that the best way to treat her is as a supporting character where she can shine and leave the audience asking for more, whereas when Ben or Jane get the main character treatment, the increased focus reduces their charisma and attraction.

(This is also why back in my Highlander days, I never wanted a Methos spin-off, despite being as fond of the character as any other fan. He is perhaps THE example of a character who needs to remain a recurring guest star in order to maintain what makes their charm and mystery.)

Attend the saga of sisters and a sister-in-law… ) The script manages to avoid the obvious quotes while coming up for Austenish sounding things the characters to say, and does great both with the social comedy of manners and the emotional drama. All in all really superb. Anyone either German like me or French: I watched it on ARTE, which also offers the undubbed, original version. Enjoy!

am i the weird one here

Sep. 19th, 2025 07:29 pm
wychwood: New Burbage (don't bother) (S&A - New Burbage (don't bother))
[personal profile] wychwood
I was reading an article about, more or less, how to tackle the discrepancies between what you want (short-term) and what you want (long-term) when I stumbled across the line "Everyone has once-worn clothes strewn on the furniture.". I've seen people talk about it as a "problem" sometimes before, but - is that really a common thing that people do?? I am now madly curious.
Poll #33636 floordrobes and other clothing distribution methods
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 32


Do you routinely have part-worn clothes around?

View Answers

Never. Clothes are on my body or in the laundry.
1 (3.2%)

Maybe one or two items
15 (48.4%)

Half a dozen outfits in various stages of wear at any given time
13 (41.9%)

My entire clothing stock is spread around my living space in a quantum superposition of dry laundry not put away and various stages of wear
2 (6.5%)

Do you think it's totally normal to have multiple part-worn items lying around the bedroom etc?

View Answers

Absolutely
11 (34.4%)

It's not ideal but mostly, yes
13 (40.6%)

I wouldn't say normal, but people do it
5 (15.6%)

Why... why would you do that
3 (9.4%)

What's worst

View Answers

Washing clothes every wear
15 (48.4%)

Wearing clothes for multiple days
1 (3.2%)

Not tweaking your outfit every day for the exact circumstances
1 (3.2%)

Clothes
14 (45.2%)


(I wear most of my clothes once before washing them; jumpers and trousers mostly go for a week before washing; at any given time I have both home and outside trousers in use and I might have a jumper around that I'm wearing intermittently, but that's the maximum "part-worn clothes lying around" I get).

Alien: Earth 1.07

Sep. 18th, 2025 04:28 pm
selenak: (Agent Brand by Likeadeuce)
[personal profile] selenak
In which it's very useful to know the numbers of pi by heart. Or eye.

What have you done? )

Raindrops keep falling on my head....

Sep. 16th, 2025 04:47 pm
selenak: (Ben by Idrilelendil)
[personal profile] selenak
RIP Robert Redford. A fantastic run of movies especially in the 70s as an actor, later as a director never made an uninteresting movie, founded a film festival of several decades running, and to the best of my knowledge never abused his fame and status and instead used both to help others.


*throws rice*

Sep. 15th, 2025 06:03 pm
astrogirl: (Kim Kitsuragi)
[personal profile] astrogirl
After many delays, Just Married finally went live yesterday! And, wow, what a great exchange this was for me. I got three gifts: a Three/Delgado!Master story, a Twelve/Missy one, and a Harry du Bois/Kim Kitsuragi one (with artwork). All of which are great in different ways.

And on top of that, someone as their entry did a podfic of my Disco Elysium story from a previous round, "Do, Did, Will." Which I'd really been looking forward to hearing ever since they asked me for permission to do it some time ago. And they did a great job with it! I especially like the voice they do for Harry, which very much evokes the one I imagine for him in my own head. You know, it's happened several times now, but I don't think I will ever, ever stop getting a huge kick out of people podficcing my stuff. Partly because it's always such a flattering surprise that anybody wants to do it, but also because listening to the result always feels like encountering my own stuff from the outside for the first time. Like, it's this thing that's just out there in the world and I sort of have to actively remind myself that, hey, I did that, I made that story exist! Which is bizarre-feeling and fascinating and cool.

To start the week with

Sep. 15th, 2025 11:59 am
selenak: (Music)
[personal profile] selenak
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds finished its third season, and you may have deduced from the fact I didn't review the remaining episodes that for me, it did not take a turn for the better. The Ortegas episode was probably the most, in lack of a better term, Trekian, not to mention the long awaited one with a focus on Ortegas beyond "I fly the ship", but it shares with far too many ST: SNW episodes the way it is just incredibly derivative, of both other franchises and earlier ST. And the series finale chose to pick my least favourite DS9 plotline and scenario, sigh. To complete my turn to an old grouch, the feeling of this season as Star Trek: The Rom Com didn't help, either. Anyway. I'll always have Discovery and Prodigy in terms of new ST that manages to unite both affection for the past AND originality and the courage to try out new paths and characters.
*****

Given the daily horror show that is the news, it's all the more important to find joy in fannish things, so I was delighted to discover this new Sense 8 vid. Now there was a show celebrating joy and diversity:

Sense 8

Voice in my Throat

***

And on another joyful note: Yuletide nominations have started!

*violent eye-twitches setting in*

Sep. 14th, 2025 05:59 pm
wychwood: Zhaan is interesting (Fan - Zhaan interesting)
[personal profile] wychwood
Interminable September has not defeated me yet! My goal for the week is to get through the Dream of Gerontius without attempting to faint. Other than work, chores, and choir I have been doing nothing but read read read and have already finished more books this month than I managed in any other month this year, but do now seem to be slowing down slightly.

My boss has set up a new joint task tracker for our 121s and we went through and added numerous things from my to-do list to it on Friday, but she wants to put predicted end dates on them and I just... can't. "OK, can you finish this one in September?" no I can't do anything else in September I'm going to be in a tent. "Shall we say October for this?" no because there's already two things you wanted in September and also in October I'm going to be spending a fortnight testing something single-handed because everyone else is busy. "OK then this one in November?" right but didn't you also want me to guarantee the bespoke work testing before Christmas because this schedule doesn't give me any room for that in September or October and there's graduations to fit in somewhere, so...

She's not actually unreasonable, but also I don't think I've ever quite been able to explain how much of my workday is taken up by "ordinary" things that never get as far as her list of bigger tasks but, crucially, do still need to be done. And most of the bigger jobs require significant blocks of focussed time and I don't have very much capacity for that in any one day, although I can work on boring maintenance tasks OK... anyway, I was feeling extremely stressed on Friday, and it's trying to creep back now except I don't have time because tomorrow I have a half-day away day and then my singing lesson and then a choir rehearsal and then I have to get home and unpack and repack my bag before bed because I have another on-campus day on Tuesday so I can attend a half-day meeting she can't make, and then another choir rehearsal in the evening and sure theoretically I can't explain why I can't find three hours in there to work on live chat, but also...

Time to go and read another book and do my best not to think about it, I think!!1!

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