Summer Fete

Just been to Pangbourne's - it apparently goes on to midnight with fireworks, but the only problem is, unless you're watching things, you run out of stuff to do fairly quickly, as there's only so many tents. Three hours there max, I'd say. People in the village probably spend the afternoon there, have dinner, then go back for the evening.

Wandered round, chatted, looked at the stalls that're always so much more fascinating as a kid - the tombolas and roll tenpenny pieces, then sat and watched the Morris Dancing - the sort we have round here, which is blokes only in white clothes with straw bonnets, sashes and bells and hankies plus a hobby horse. Hobby Horse - bloke covered by a red and blue cloth, with a wooden horse's head on top which he can clamp the jaw of. Am beginning to suspect am getting an addiction to these things, considering I always used to insist on watching them as a kid. Then watched the Dragon Boat races, listened to the Silver Band for a bit, then caught the pub teams doing the Tug o' War.

Very hot and sunny day, made amusing by all the teenagers wandering round in sweaters. One girl had a duffel coat on over her cardy. All those over twenty or under the age of ten had a habit of going 'um, aren't they boiling?' Also, when the announcer was announcing lost children, there was one point when the people I was with couldn't figure out whether they were talking about a lost Harry Potter t-shirt or a lost child with a Harry Potter t-shirt on. Also heard one I'd never heard before - "Can Jenny please give her mum a ring on her mobile as mum is a tad frantic'. Couldn't mum have phoned Jenny to find out where she is?

Can still hear the Silver Band and the announcer's microphone down the valley.

Updated bits of sites earlier - couple of recs, additions to essays, that kind of thing. A bit annoyed that I can't think of much to add to BSY except an update on the Sunnydale situation and an entry in 'Sightings' (speculation on whether the actors in other roles are actually Giles or Ethan doing different jobs or undercover work) about Manchild. Concluded it couldn't have been Giles due to extreme childishness. Must be like it was for soulstar when Harmony left the show and thus was difficult updating the Spike/Harmony site.

Think I'm going to go back out into the sun and read Wee Free Men.

Star wars and other musings

Just watched Ep 4, A New Hope, aka the original. Not the best, but damn fun. My only problem is occasionally I want to throw things at how big of a Boys Own story it is, but you can't really do anything about it. Mind you, I do start burying my head in my hands and groaning when the medals cremony comes on. Medals? Seriously, why? Maybe it's a girl thing, in that the medals don't really make any sense. Prizes, or maybe money, something of worth, but medals... yeesh. Not to mention I tend to grin when Luke looks hopefully at Leia, because, well, you're getting nowhere with her, boy. Wait a few months and she's head over heels for the bad boy. And of course there's Wedge. Aww, my ickle baby Wedge of the cuteness and puppy dog-ness, who I tend to whoop 'Wedge the legless!' when he comes onscreen. I can't help it, it's too much fun. And then a couple of films later when you get the big reunion scene of him and his boyfriend on Endor. Boyfriend? I hear you say, puzzled. I saw no boyfriend. Shame on you, didn't you watch the thing with slash-coloured glasses? The boyfriend is rather obviously Luke.

This is partially down to me reading a Luke/Wedge story a few years back. I know the big pairing of the original Star Wars films is Luke/Han, but something about this pairing, though never thought of before, just instantly clicked. Maybe it's because I've always been invested in Han/Leia, as it was my childhood thang, but partially it's because of the cheery grin and the way Wedge and Luke are just so damned pleased to see each other, no hero worship on Wedge's side like there is with the other Rebels when it comes to Luke. There's been other cases of instantaneous click when reading fic, when maybe the pairing wasn't necessarily obvious, like, say, Jack/Daniel is in SG-1, but you read it and your whole brain goes 'ah-hah!'

Anyone else got any pairings like that?

Just watched a bit of Backdraft and dear god, watch the testosterone fly. This is a man's movie. Downright manly. Working-class manly. No space for things like therapists, where men are firefighters and politicians are weak and nancy boys because they don't work for a living like men. Partially reinforced by the presence of Kurt Russell being all manly, as he is wont to do. If I watched the whole thing I could probably see the slash bloody easily, because slash flourishes like nothing else in manly films, but the problem was I watched the part with the garment warehouse fire and him yelling at his brother. I was all about the 'oh dear god, please let them get out safe' rather than watching for shipping. Possibly because I've had a very healthy fear of unchecked fire since I was little, only reinforced by going on the Backdraft ride a couple of times at Universal Studios.