This is a present I made mirrorshard. I had the idea of it when waking up from a much-too short sleep this morning, and wrote it over the last half an hour or so.

It is a trifling little thing, but Sam likes it, and I think I do too. :-)

( On the Nature of Alien Landscapes )

I have never particularly been a Michael Jackson fan, though I liked quite a lot of his music.

I'm sad he's dead. He was very young for it, and it seems to me that he led quite a tragic life.

Please note that I will be extremely annoyed with anyone making or passing on tasteless jokes about him over the coming week. If you feel the need to make them (which I hope none of you would anyway, but, you know, in case), please filter me out. It's not my cup of tea at all.

Happy Birthday purplepiano!

May the coming year be filled for you with joy and music and fluff and interesting things. :-)

What was the name of the character that yvesilena played in the Blest Sirens Opera Company production of The Impresario?

We are both trying to remember, and neither of us can, and it's on the tip of our brains and yet is not happening.

the_alchemist? purplepiano? Someone? PLEEEEEAAAAASSSEE???

---

Edit: It was Miss something Crown. I think. Hm.

Those familiar with the Ebenezer Chapel, Milford, Derbyshire (so, Bardcampers past and present, and UFP members likewise...). :-

What are the outsides of the bedroom doors like, in particular the opening mechanism? Doorknobs or handles? How low down? Particularly the the first floor bedroom (next to the dining room) and the sauna room, but info about other rooms could also be good.

This is the sort of thing I never notice, and it would be quite useful for one or two of us to know. ;-)

Hm, this article, on the health benefits of alcohol (or rather, how there may well not be any), looks quite interesting, and rather less dodgy than BBC articles on science often are.

However, I am no scientist. Those of you who are: how would you rate it?

Well, those election results are rather depressing. :-(

Labour deserved to do badly, and I hope they learn from this. I'm not sure the Conservatives deserved to do as well as they did, but it's not surprising (and no, I shan't think any the worse of any of you for voting for them :-)). UKIP, on the other hand, make me want to spew, for many reasons (most of which aren't their anti-EU attitudes, although I'm pro-EU membership myself). And as for the BNP... oh gods. :-(

It looks like the same problem appears to be happening across Europe. Meh.


Two LJ posts/articles which are cheering me up: auntysarah gives practical advice on how to oppose the BNP in the future, and mirrorshard talks about Europe and the matter of Britain, and why the EU is potentially a Good Thing.


Ftr, I joined the Green Party last Thursday (not heard from them yet, but they've been a wee bit busy ;-)). They're not perfect, but they're the closest any decent-sized party gets to my views on things. I'm going to see if I can help them do better in future. I think mostlyacat wants to as well. Rah. :-)

Any other Kingdom of Loathing victims having trouble with the site today? For some reason the main frame just isn't happening for me today, which kind of renders use of it impossible...

It's probably the gods of the internet telling me to focus on getting I, Camp transcription/editing stuff sorted out instead, to be fair. ;-)

In more cheerful news:

Nick: Let all the socks that lurk in the mud hatch out!

[He then proceeds to put ALL THE DIRTY CLOTHES on my feet while attempting to find all the socks. Hm.]


(This will mostly not be comprehensible to people unfamiliar with the final episode of I, Claudius...)

Joint pain. We hates it, my precious.


That is all.

I was just looking at Sophie Winkleman's entry on Wikipedia, and came across the following:-

On St Valentine's Day 2009, she became engaged to Lord Frederick Windsor, son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent. After the marriage at the Chapel Royal on Hampton Court on September 12th 2009, Sophie Winkleman will be styled Lady Frederick Windsor, which was previously her fiancé's title.

(Edit: bold type mine. ;-))

That pleases me far too much. :-)


To explain: I was looking up Sophie Winkleman in response to hearing the first episode of the new Radio 4 comedy "Elvenquest". So far it seems to be not as good as Elnaria* would have been, but still pretty good in most places. Except... and it's a big except... so far it has been disappointingly, egregiously sexist. It's only the first episode and it could yet redeem itself on that score, though, so I'm not going to write it off just yet. Not least as Alastair McGowan is adorable as the chief villain.

---

* And not dissimilar in some ways, actually! *smiles at ixwin, tea_at_bettys and rosie_rhi_bee. :-)

I didn't even notice it was Holocaust Remembrance Day today until I saw a mention of it on the Facebook status of a rather wonderful friendly acquaintance of mine. Who lost 50 family members.

It's got me thinking, though. Well, obviously. But specifically at this moment, about the increasing wave of Holocaust-denial, globally. About the increasing amounts of violence against Jews in Europe.

I oppose most of the Israeli government's policies wrt the Palestinian people. I oppose most of the actions of the Israeli army against the Palestinian people. The dynamics of oppression are in full force in the Middle-east, and I find the uncritical pro-Israeli attitude of the US, for instance, extremely yucky. Being anti- Israeli government != being anti-semitic, and I think that's something which it is important to remember. But, well. When Jews are being beaten up, and when anti-semitic chants (with reference to the Shoah) are being made at pro-Palestinian protests*, why it's happening is almost irrelevant. Being sympathetic to the nonviolent elements of the intifada, and at least understanding the actions of the less nonviolent elements: these make sense. These are reasonable. But none of it, *none of it*, is justification for hating Jews, nor for tolerating that hatred.

What is bothering me particularly today is that I haven't been hearing much about increasing violence against Jews in Europe, and yet it has been going on. I've haven't needed to know. Just as I didn't need to know that today is Yom Ha'Shoah. I am extremely privileged. I can ignore all of these things, if I want to.

But I don't want to. This evening I'm going to light a candle for the family of my friendly acquaintance, and for all who died. I'm also going to link you to this article, which I think is a very good one.

It's precious little. So, so little. But, well. Better than nothing, I think.


* Dudes, stop being on our side. Ack. :-(

I've been reading over the past couple of days about Lynn Gilderdale: an M.E. sufferer who died from a morphine overdose a few months ago, and whose mother has been arrested for murdering her, in a possible case of mercy killing or assisted suicide.

I'm not going to get into any kind of discussion about what her mother may have done, nor the rights and wrongs of it.

I'm mostly just finding the whole story extremely upsetting, and hoping that compassion towards everyone concerned will prevail. And I'm sad and angry that Lynn Gilderdale spent 17 years bed-ridden and unable to speak or eat or drink unassisted, with an illness that some people *still claim is psychosomatic*, or even not real at all.

This is also the illness I have. I am so, so, *SO* lucky to have it as mildly as I do. It's cut swathes through my life and wrecked many of my early hopes and dreams for what my life would be like. But I am healthy enough to have built a different life, one which I mostly am fairly happy with and in. Yes, it is at times full of difficulties and disappointments and great physical pain and mental confusion and yuck, thanks primarily to the M.E.[1]. But there are so many other things about my life that are good. And I am well enough to get out and about in a wheelchair most of the time if there's someone to push me, and sometimes I can walk around myself, even for quite a while. Give me sufficient fresh sea air and I can manage quite a bit more than that, if I can rest lots before and after. I can enjoy wonderful weekends with people I love, even though I do tend to crash badly afterwards. I am able to work a little from home part-time now, and on most days I can do some laundry or a little tidying, so I make less of a burden to my wonderful mostlyacat. Who is himself about the best thing in the world. I have a plethora of amazing friends, and all of the people I know well in-real-life are beautifully considerate and sensible about my illnesses. As are most of the people I know just online. All in all, my life isn't so bad. :-)

Having been ill for so many years now, I'm fairly confident that I am not going to ever be as ill as Lynn Gilderdale. But I have no guarantees of that. And I remember so many occasions in the past when I have been so, so desperately scared of becoming that ill, and with no little justification for that fear.


I wanted to share that, and I've partly made it a public post because reading about Lynn Gilderdale and her mother has clarified something I've been wondering about for a while: how hard a line to take with people who still have the old, "yuppie flu" attitude towards M.E..

I'm still not sure exactly how hard a line. But harder than I have in the past, I think. Because it's not just about me and my life. It's about my friends who have M.E. and fibro and coeliac disease and other chronic fatigue related illnesses - whether they have it worse than I do, or less badly or roughly the same. It's about my friends with depression and anxiety and other mental illnesses, which are also not taken nearly seriously enough. And it's about Lynn Gilderdale, and other severely affected sufferers. The ones who are bed-ridden for years on end. The ones who die of organ failure. The ones who keep going, and the ones who give up.

I care about what people I like think about an illness that has affected my life so deeply. I think it is entirely justified that I should. This is part of me. I wish it weren't, but it is. Feel entirely free to believe that I don't always handle being ill as well or considerately as I could; it's true, and I know it! Feel free to differ from me (in either direction!) over whether on X specific occasion it was the M.E. or my anxiety disorder or depression or all three that was making me as ill as I was. Feel free to sympathise with me more for the bowel disease or the mild but nerve-pinching, pain-inducing spinal deformity, because those are the two medical conditions I have for which I have completely verified data and they cause a bit more of the pain and will definitely never go away. But if you don't believe that the illness M.E. is a serious, physical condition? *sighs*

Your view of M.E./CFS, whatever it is, isn't theoretical where I'm concerned. It is personal. It is part of your view of me, of who I am, of what I do with and about my life. I rather regret how strongly I feel about this, but pretending I don't would be stupid.

---

Comments screened. Please say if you would rather your comment stayed screened. I will have absolutely no qualms about leaving a comment screened or even deleting it if that's what I feel most comfortable doing.

---

Note:

[1] And, of course the other four serious medical conditions I have, two of which are mental illnesses. One of those (anxiety) is, I believe, the chief long-term trigger for the physical illness of M.E. The other (depression) seems to be mostly caused by the M.E. as a practical side effect of the restrictions it places on my life. Though of course that's really a gross simplification. :-)

Now, I'm not at my best today, and rather over-emotional. Messed up my anti-depressants prescription again, so am having rather bad withdrawal.

But I'm fairly sure I would have wept massively for joy at this even if I were feeling normal. (Or, you know, normal for me.)

Some of you will have heard about it. Clip from Britain's Got Talent, a horrible tv program which I have never watched properly, because cruel and judgemental attitudes from sneering bastards at people is, you know, not my idea of a good time.

This clip features a woman called Susan Boyle.

To quote from an article on Shapely Prose (a feminist, pro-body acceptance blog which I am reading with increasing avidity and cannot recommend too highly):-

( Cut for language )


I'm partly weeping with joy for Susan Boyle herself, partly because the female judge at least seems to have learned something very important from the experience (as I think did some members of the audience), and partly because it's simply the best rendition of that particular song I've ever heard. And I have a bit of a weakness for Les Miserables. :-)


I discern in the back of my mind some cynical stuff, particularly as regards her future now. She could easily get horribly exploited at this point, and I fear she will be.

But I don't want to think about it today, and nor will I welcome comments pointing out the negatives of this. I just want to share the joy, and honour the talent and courage and ass-kicking-ness of Susan Boyle, because that woman is made of so much win. :-)

Given that Amazon appear to have upped their fail levels to something quite ridiculous (here is one account of why), I should finally get off my butt and move my wish lists and purchasing habits across to a different website, or more than one. Tbh given their employment practises I should have been doing so for a while.

So: recommend me online places to buy and put wish lists up for books, CDs, DVDs, etc., lovely people? Ideally places with very wide selections that are nevertheless at the least more ethical than Amazon, and preferably pretty decent.

I live a walk and a train journey and another walk away from the nearest bookshop and I have M.E., so online places with home delivery are a key thing here.

---

Edit: Ooh! Answering my own question slightly, the wonderful taimatsu has been telling me about thingsilove, which is a general wish-list site that enables you to put items on from sites all over the internet. I have joined, under my real name.

I still would like recommendations for sites that sell Amazon-type things, though. :-)

Hello folks,

See the icon there? Do you see a tabby kitten with long eyelashes and a flower on its head, or do you see an illustration of a man in a dramatic pose, with "ack-ting" written over it?

It *should* be the latter, but I keep seeing the kitten.

Poll #1370322 Kitten or ack-ting?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I see...

I've cleared my cache but haven't restarted Firefox yet. I *suspect* that the latter will sort the problem out, but we'll see. In the meantime, I'm curious to know who can see what!

---

Edit: no, it didn't sort it out at all. Grr!

mostlyacat and I were silly last night about turning computers off and going to bed.

As a result, didn't get to sleep until nearly 4am and couldn't get up until nearly noon, and still feel underslept (as indeed from my sleep-needs point of view I am). And Nick is also very tired, which is not good because he was already very under the weather.

As a result, our plans to go out to a National Trust property today with the wheelchair have been totally scuppered.


We've both been doing this sort of thing an awful lot lately, and it's one reason why my sleeping schedule is so screwed at the moment. We're going to try to stick to an 11pm-computers-off rule this week. If you see either of us online after that time, may I request prodding to tell us to go to bed?


Yours zonked and annoyed with herself,

Elly
xxxx

Here is a link.

(Link obtained from Eithin.)


I cannot quite get over how fantastic that is. :-)