You had plenty money 1922

...when you find out a photo of you as a kid is being used for pro-logging posters. From porphyre :I've just discovered that a photo of twelve year old me walking through the Endowment Lands with my little brother has been used as a life sized cross Canada promotional poster for a pro-logging coalition to promote logging of old-growth forests "by showing that second-growth forests can be enjoyed too".

no model release form from her parents, NOT LEGAL. That ain't a newsworthy image. they need permission.

course, they can tie it up in the courts until the advertising period is over, so best recourse would be bad press. And these days we have the interwebs. Who's with me on spreading this? I'll be checking back with her for updates.

In other news, Zorro's just posted closing notices for 14th March. Which means I need to book *soon*. Anyone else?

Listening to Zorro musical st. Which was recorded live at one of the performances (they keep audience clapping in to prove this on the end of tracks). I frowned and went 'you know, this seems a bit lifeless compared to what I remember...' and went on youtube, listened to the trailer track the production put up there and the *single* bootleg one - and yeah, lo and behold, whoever was doing the editing did bland it. it's really, really noticeable on Emma William's (Luisa) numbers - which is seriously annoying considering this is one of the few cds that exist with her on it. You wouldn't notice if you hadn't seen it live.

:sigh: (though since parents requested to listen to the cd last night, i'm one step closer to getting them to see it...)

unclutter - pair of sandals and a cord skirt that mum picked up from oxfam and still has the oxfam price tag attached..

In other news, boss has got enthusiastic about a new toy, yammer, which we're supposed to update with whatever we're doing. I ignored it for several days, and am now taking the passive aggressive route by spamming it with *everything* I'm doing. 'tapping desk waiting for outlook's search functions' 'moving emails to another folder' 'replying to author' 'pasting correct info into xml editor'

Well, that was a magical mystery tour and a half. Yours truly set off at 9:30 this morning in the pouring rain for the 10:30 train... and got into Falmouth flat at 8:45.

Flooding in Swindon and Westbury, plus a bit of Bristol. Cue delays and cancellations all over the shop. Except. First Great Western would put up 'delayed'... and then only show the train as cancelled four minutes before or after it was originally due.

And then they kept us waiting around, telling us there might be the prospect of buses. 'But if it's not absolutely necessary, please make your journey tomorrow.' Lots of that. Some Bristol and Bath buses, which aren't helpful if you're going to the West country. And offers of refunds. uh-huh. *Really* helpful. Eventually after the 11:30 Penzance train got cancelled four minutes before it's due (seriously, if you know it's not coming, why keep people hanging on? That was one of the things that really pissed us off), they tell us to get on the Basingstoke train and there's a route to Exeter St Davids. Which was said very quietly to a small bunch of people - essentially they just didn't want to deal with us.

So. Train to Basingstoke. Train from there to Gillingham. Bus from Gillingham to Yeovil. (this was scheduled engineering works, which had been advertised) Train from Yeovil to Exeter St Davids. Exeter St Davids to Plymouth. Plymouth to Truro. Truro to Falmouth. When i should've been in Falmouth at 2:30...

First Great Western staff at Reading? Fuckwits. Who did not give one shit about us, and encouraged us at every turn to go away and leave them alone. They could've told us about the Basingstoke train a good hour earlier, and they *really* could've told the people who'd been waiting since 9. But no, they covered that up. Christ. a couple of buses wouldn't have been that difficult to organise to Exeter to get us round Swindon. Amazingly, people who've got a 4-5 hour journey ahead of them anyway do not want refunds or to come back tomorrow.

Swindon often floods. This was one night's moderate rainfall. PUMPS. Raise the fucking rails a bit, you're constantly doing engineering work. FSM's sake, elephants would work...

South West staff, on the other hand, really nice about having to deal with this exhausted, deflated motley crue that turned up and tripled the amount of people they had to ferry around the engineering works. So by the time we were at Plymouth, we all knew each other on sight and knew destinations.

ETA : now seen Stardust. may have died from sheer adorable. (though it could be a bit shorter) Also, cameo city much?

Feck. Too many bloody details just blindsided me.

It's 1948/49, Peter's first leave. (which. Um. How soon would you get leave in your first posting?)

And of course my brain didn't register that this is at least 7 years after Prince Caspian. Not even Lucy would still be in school, since she was 12/13 in Prince Caspian. Which wasn't too bad - just had to quickly change a line from 'still in school' to 'not finished training'. I *think* Edmund's still in Secret Service training and still at the point where he'd still be covered by National Service period, because it's not 1950 yet and thus he didn't get shipped off to Malaya. Expecting his future career to be covered by uni and then 'diplomatic job'.

Thank the FSM for having parents who know a lot about the era.
'Er, job for a 20-21 year old nice middle class girl?'
'Typist or clerk. You have no idea how many typists were needed in any business until the advent of computers. And she'd still be living at home. Nails probably short since though it is possible to type with long nails, you were at risk of breaking them very easily.'
And she sympathised with my 'how is it so many post-war writers forget rationing and national service?' moan.

having problems because Dad!Pevensie is trying to tactfully ask his son about the savage killer reports he got from his old army mates. And Peter's cheerful. And so much more relaxed and comfortable in his skin and a bunch of the pent-up frustration is *gone*. And now he's got to broach it with Edmund.

the other problem? Everyone's definitely different - this fic is about how they still can't cope with their children who came back from being evacuees so strange and the girls keep doing split personality. (they're all slightly distant/too grown-up/cliquey/make disturbing war comments, but Lucy is mostly cheerful bubbly and suddenly switches to full-on draconian ward sister when it comes to medical stuff. Susan is *normal*. Shallow, of course, but then there's the political insight/cool imperious stuff.)

However, I don't know how much they'd notice Edmund's quirks beyond the distant/cliquey thing. Because Edmund fades into the background on purpose. And is just generally calm and reliable and solid. AND CS LEWIS GIVES US NO IDEA WHAT HE WAS LIKE PRE-WAR. The utter brattishness is due to going to school. That's stated in LWW, and emphasised by missing dad and so on in the film. just that he was more of a good egg. What? Was he more like Peter? Like Lucy? Like Susan? Is his entire personality as we know him due to the White Witch and Narnia?

A MUSICAL EVENT - hosted by Sir Tim Rice

TRURO CATHEDRAL
Friday 7th November at 7.30pm

Tim Rice introduces stars of the West End and of contemporary music
in a fund-raising concert for the Truro Cathedral Choir.

FEATURED ARTISTS:

JOHN BARROWMAN
CONNIE FISHER
THE MAGNETS
RICK WAKEMAN

And of course

THE TRURO CATHEDRAL CHOIR

A concert that features two of the West End's and television's
leading musical performers, John Barrowman and Connie Fisher, one of
the true keyboard greats of rock music, Rick Wakeman, and astounding
vocal acrobats, The Magnets, an a capella sextet that has to be heard
to be believed.

Tickets £6 - £20 from Hall For Cornwall Box Office tel:01872 262466
or online www.hallforcornwall.co.uk (HFC LOGO)



GAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH.

Couldn't you be two weeks earlier? During the Falmouth Oyster Festival? It's £37.50 just for a *single* ticket to Truro. It takes 4 bloody hours to get there from *Reading*. And I'm someone who's lucky enough to have free accomodation in that area, unless you're insane enough to get the sleeper back.

And for those insane enough to think of going down - yes, the Magnets are fucking fantastic live. Also eeevil.

ETA : I AM WEAK.

...Lost in Austen, please stop doing that to me! And stop making me like Wickham, dammit! (never mind that I've always liked any character who's a bastard and shameless about it - it's why I've always liked the villains, they've got a personality) Amanda, you are eeeevil. I can't believe you did that whole postmodern thing. Bingley? :facepalm: Oh yeah, Caroline, Jane Austen never predicted *that*. Lady Catherine De Burgh, officially cool. We love the Bennets. Gah. Darcy, please stop being so much yourself.

Dad is currently wailing 'But they've only got one more episode! How're they going to wrap all of it up in that time? They need at least two more!'

One thing I utterly love about this series is that Amanda, although she has a massive tendency to insert her foot in her mouth, can speak the language and knows the exact polite phrasing perfectly. Just... thankyou, writers. She's a fan, she knows half of it off by heart, so if they'd had her *not* knowing how to apologise/give compliments/perfectly polite but utterly bitchy comments, and gone the route of 'mary-sue who's supposedly an utter fan of the books and period but has no sodding idea of how to act', you'd have scuppered it. As it is, watching Amanda vs. Darcy, Amanda vs. Caroline, and Amanda vs. Lady Catherine is an utter *joy*. Though I must draw little hearts around any scene with Amanda and Wickham, because they just completely *get* each other. Not to mention you know full well if they did ever fall into bed after going out on the town and getting utterly lashed, they'd both just shrug it off, mock the other's hangover and then pass the water.

:mutter: we hate skechers. they have a gazillion variations of the biker trainer with the cross-strap available in the US, but only two versions - embroidered brocade, both of 'em - in the UK. And the US site won't ship internationally.

...I need to stop reading the latest crop of articles on international breastfeeding journal before I stab something. (currently in pdf while we generate the xml versions) Media representations, formula websites' advertising copy as manipulation, the fact that the west sexualises breats so much that people see the act of breastfeeding in public as lewd - never mind that apparently human milk is *lower* in fat and protein than cow milk so baby needs to be within constant reach, which really defeats the argument (and displays the basic ignorance) that enemies of public breastfeeding often use - 'what's the problem? feed the baby before you go out, you don't need to feed it in the restaurant.' Then the issues of Katrina that had malnourished, dehydrated babies because the mothers didn't have access to clean water for formula. Plenty of reporters saying that this was a scandal. Not one saying 'why the hell are they on formula in the first place? This is completely avoidable.'

Stupid background stuff that will never actually make it into fic : my brain is currently consumed with what accent (Welsh or Scots) would be more identifiable as 'clearly different' to English to an outsider. Even though this would have no impact whatsoever, since hello, written not audio and I could have the Archenlanders speaking with whatever accent I damn well want because the only time you see Archenlanders in the flesh in the Narnian books is The Horse and his Boy, and they're not going to be filming *that* anytime soon.

Simply put : The Telmarines are familiar with the Archenlanders. Archenland = smaller country bordering the big one, related by blood, hills separating them from the main country, etc. So in my mind, Archenland = Wales/Scotland. Narnians speak with a variety of English accents - RP to Cockney to Yorkshire. By the time of Prince Caspian, there are no humans left that speak with a Narnian accent, and 99.999% of Telmarines have never come into contact with a Narnian - talking beasts *don't exist* anymore. They're fairytales. Wiped out. And it was probably a metaphor *anyway*, right? So, they hear a Pevensie talking and the accent's clearly not Telmarine (Spanish, I think it's southern, but don't quote me on that...). The thing is, if I presume that the Archenlanders speak with a Welsh or Scots accent, is that accent different *enough* from to the ear to distinguish said Pevensie from an Archenlander? And if one of them is, which one is it? Should I be picking Geordie instead? (Cornish just isn't different *enough* if I'm extending this to the more distinct areas of mainland Britain. Yeah. The Lone Islanders are probably Hebridean or Channel Islanders in my head. Aslan alone knows what happened to the Irish...)

I turn the question over to all of you non-island-dwellers who speak English. Help my inconsequential detail-obsessed brain.

[Poll #1240027]

In other news, people think my Peter is frightening. Clearly they need to read bedlambard's Peter. Mine is nothing compared to hers. Also, they all want to see Edmund. I have *no idea* what to do with Edmund because I can't quite see him going into the army by choice unless he was going for military intelligence. :thoughtful: mind you, if he had been drafted by '48, there's a chance he might get spotted and sidelined into a more ... interesting line of military work. (and Peter so joined the SAS once it got re-formed in 1950. More his style. And the other officers wanted to get him away from them.)

Military club/pub (either in England or some odd corner of the world)
'I'm looking for Pevensie. Anyone seen him?'
'Well, there's that vicious and frankly scary bastard Pevensie, and then there's his brother who doesn't seem to have any guiding compass beyond 'it needed doing'. Which one did you want to talk to again?'

Had finished sundress. went off to mess around on t'internet, other stuff. Then looked at zip and realised it wasn't on quite right, and this would bug me, so I unpicked it, pinned it into correct place, and then ... the sewing machine started fucking up. Not one setting touched on it, you understand. It had bloody well better work this evening otherwise there will be red-hot pokers in its future.

I really shouldn't get so much amusement from Calormene ambassadors going 'Still awaiting orders and we're at your disposal and would like a nice trade agreement but we'd like to say *right now* that we have no designs on Queen Susan. None. None whatsoever. Not one hair on her head.' Because the Rabadash thing is taught as a lesson and parable in schools and they, er, have rather good records and legends of what a rather well-honed sense of vengeance the old Narnian kings have. (this being during the period while all the ambassadors at the Narnian court are milling around going 'new person on throne, we can handle - oh shit, it's not a Telmarine, it's ... it's the old legendary kings and queens of a thousand years ago? And they're kids? Is there *any* protocol for this?')

( more bibble on narnia-where-they-stay )

Random lines to run through your head in the shower in the morning : 'This is his dry-cleaning bill : four sweater vests' and 'We do the weird stuff' I may have been listening to Dr Horrible's Sing-along Blog too much.

Dan gave me yum-yums apropos of nothing. We love Dan. My favourite bakery treat EVAH, and he didn't even know...

SMALL GODS? FUCK. OFF.

ETA : I can't read. But still. Not a sodding alchemist.

If anyone else tries to tell me about that bus vs. tree branch thing that happened in London, I will scream. Someone at work forwarded me the link. I really, really enjoy getting triggery flashbacks, honest... And now I've got the added knowledge that that sort of thing can kill you, not just maim.

GREAT.

I'm looking forward to the nightmares tonight. REALLY.