You had plenty money 1922

Am avoiding the tv. We have used the twitter tag #activatethequeen. I'll stop wincing in a minute and prepare to sacrifice the weatherman for electoral reform and another election in six months.

In the meantime, to calm my nerves, I'll rant about fanfic tropes instead.

Have discovered that the one that pisses me off the most? It's not rape. It's not ultra-violence. It's not really bad h/c. It's not 'I have read about cancer so i will make character x suffer through the whole experience in full medical detail'. Nope. Turns out to be eating disorders.

Seriously. WHY? Is it that you want them to suffer delicately and prettily without the blood and pain of violence? It's the new h/c, it must be. with added route to salvation if everyone around them loves them enough and they *finally learn to love themselves. :smacks the authors doing this: If this was the 19th century, you'd be bloody writing the characters with TB, only that's got no way out. But they can survive for years coughing delicately...

I have read decent mental disorder fic. I have seen really damn plausible mental disorder fic. Often written as horror story. The really good ones leave a gaping hole in you. I have yet to see a fucking plausible eating disorder (which yes, is a mental disorder too) fic. And stunningly, the characters they *give* eating disorders aren't even the ones you could handwave as having an eating disorder since the actors now look like skeletons - or are stated to starve themselves in canon.

ARRRRRGH.

Second, unrelated: 'reel_insertfandomhere' challenges are rather popular, where you adapt a film and create a poster or fic. Some have been really, really fucking good. Take beloved characters, insert into beloved screwball comedy/action helmer/horror story. What's not to like, seeing how, say, the crew of Serenity would turn out if you'd chucked them into Pirates of the Caribbean? It's an AU with set rules. Star Trek loved doing it on the show.

Sometimes they just take the world - there was an amazing Bladerunner adaptation (WITH TRAILER, HOMG) which took fandom x's characters, chucked them into the world, and then went to infinity and beyond with the plot.

Sometimes they pretty faithfully follow the plot of the film but keep the fandom characters intact. Admittedly it helps if the original fandom is sci-fi/historical so there's a grand tradition of modern-day/this world AUs. There's a good Merlin version of The Proposal. it's even funnier when you see which characters they've decided to use for the cameos.

What you *don't* do, under any circumstances, is have the characters extensively quote the film lines. You might as well have just done a search/replace with the names. in fact, I've seen one I could have sworn just did with Some Like it Hot in reel_torchwood.

I'm now going to hide from reality and watch more SCC.

Right, cast me vote for Lib Dems. (my blood is dyed yellow and has been for a long time) I like sanity. And hate the Tories. For those who say they've changed, have they seen their policies? Our area, which is apparently a marginal, is losing its previous long-running Labour incumbent, Martin Salter, because he's retiring. He was a bit of a twerp, but he was a twerp who got stuff done and turned out to be pretty good in local government. Please, please, don't let the Tories in. PLEASE.

Anyway. Voting is a good thing. If you don't vote, you don't have the right to grumble about politics for the next five years. simple as that. And not voting...well, the BNP is very good about getting their voters organised. that's how they got in on the European vote last time.

Turns out neither of the Reading MPs claimed expenses for a second home. Neither did the MPs for Newbury, Slough, Windsor or Guildford.

I'm of the mind it's not a case of they're less corrupt, it's more ... hi do I put this. these are all commuter towns for london. You're used to getting on the train every morning and evening, the trains run until about 1am, and you have no real desire to stay in London over night because you get focussed on the fact that you can get home and collapse in your bed in about an hour from Paddington.

Dinner tonight, dad asked me about what I thought about Obama. I squeed in a cautious kind of way about mostly it being hope, and he and I talked about presidents and america and also the way he speaks and delivers a speech (dad thinks of him as mostly resembling Sundanese rather than how he knew americans - he has a habit of attributing half my behaviour to being raised Sundanese - I was 0-5, Obama was 5-11. Words don't mean shit, actions do, personal responsibility, and some more stuff). Much Lyndon Baines Johnson, a bit of Nixon, mocking of whoever decided on Palin as a good running mate and then... um...

Dad let rip about how much he hated Bush for what he did to America, and what he's essentially been bottling up for the past 8 years. Seriously. Full-on rant and rage. And he'd never said anything before because he couldn't do anything. He hates the man (him and Cheney - seriously, dad admires Nixon for how good a politician he was - crooked as hell, but good at politics and achieved some stuff - but I think he would seriously dance on Bush's grave, and not spit on Cheney if he were on fire) partly for who he is, partly for what he's done, but mostly because of how he turned America from a place of hope that stuff could be done into this ... thing. Ending it with 'Why do you think we've not been back in the past 8 years?'

Oh, and he really likes Obama. Mostly for the hope, and the fact that he's already doing stuff on day one. Closing Guantanamo Bay, and just how important that is to the rest of the world, taking one step furhter from removing that stain. Also fully approves of having a ridiculously good-looking family in the White House. And said an interesting thing - that Obama wasn't a natural speaker in the way Clinton was, but the way he speaks in choppy stilted phrases mean you remember the damn speeches, and him and Favreau together have a real gift for evoking images.

http://www.mysociety.org/2009/01/17/6-days-to-stop-mps-concealing-their-expenses/

Go. email your MP. Everyone else has to publish their expenses - why should *they* be exempt? £1m has just been spent to get them to actually *publish* them - and now they're trying to sneak it out under a bigger-name bill.

it's your money. MPs should *never* be above the law.

We gave you to the world to provide entertainment for everyone else, and you've been terribly entertaining in the past two years in your very strange process of Democracy.

However, for once, we're trusting you not to fuck it up this time.

We have attack weasels. I have a gazillion surgical and otherwise images at my fingertips that render modblog tamer than a WI meeting (you think I'm kidding? Two of the journals I work on have the company nickname 'things men have done to their penises/stuck up their arses'). The contents of your pants and hindbrains are NOT SAFE.

If nothing else, VOTE FOR THE PRETTY. You're on lj. Most of you are in it for the pretty. FOLLOW YOUR MOST SHALLOW INSTINCTS.

Tomorrow, we as a nation celebrate anti-terrorist/burn-the-catholics/stupidity-of-entering-parliament-with-honest-intentions day. We will be crazed on alcohol, sugar and food poisoning, and willingly standing around in the freezing cold, high on the joys of society-approved arson.

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH GUNPOWDER WE HAVE AT OUR FINGERTIPS?

Well, spent most of Sunday doing the 24-hour flu of grottiness and not being able to keep water down. However, recovered sufficiently to haul self off the sickbed and get to Jerry Herman concert. (which we were informed when we got there that it was going to be the Christmas concert, which had several of us pondering if it's the new Radio 2 dictat about the Christmas Friday Night is Music Night - must involve Barrowman)

Which was brilliant. Clarke Peters brilliant, Maria Friedman and Debbie [edit to get name in a bit] all fabulous. BBC Concert Orchestra brilliant. JB somewhat silly and of course *fabulous*.

:cough: Well, aside from him constantly fluffing the autocue. Seriously. Every other link he had to re-do. Including one from the beginning he did at the end. Special mention going to the moment when the autocue actually failed quite early on and he was having to read from the script. Which he then handed to Clarke Peters for his first song. Halfway through the song, Clarke chuckled and changed the song's words to 'the words are now back and the autocue's working' so started again. :snicker: This of course significantly endeared him to the audience. (amazing voice helped, of course)

Special mention to 'I Am What I Am'. Which, as several of the JB fans put it before the show started 'chances that it won't be John singing it? oooo, about 99,999 to 1.' Of course, John was singing it. Except it wasn't introduced (they vary between announcing the songs before or doing a quick line after), so we had one song, then John walks onto the stage. Trailing a pink feather boa held in one hand. Audience sees this, *many* hoots and whistles. Gets to centre stage, puts it round his neck with suitable panache, then launches into an absolute show-stopper of a performance. Standing ovation. Which was to be expected, since not only was it an amazing performance, a good proportion of the audience are there to see him, and it's become his signature tune. However? John looked a wee bit shocked and gawped some at the response - clearly he hadn't been expecting such a massive response, since you only normally get that at the end of a performance - even Maria Friedman hadn't got it for 'Hello Dolly' earlier (which also involved a boa) - and it took him a good minute to get a response out. A man who has 20 years stage experience of being exceedingly popular, nearly always has a comeback, and can be ridiculously quick with such, reduced to gawping at audience reaction. *bless*.

Many of the JB crowd there. With added commentary and the usual 'hmm, anyone seen Scott or Gavin? I can't see any striped shirts...' (for those not quite as obsessed : Scott and John have regularly been seen in the other's shirts, and both of them have a big thing for stripes). Turned out Scott was apparently in for the first half but disappeared backstage for second half, since his seat was empty. Further fashion whatsit : John in plain shirt and suit in second half shocker. We didn't think he possessed the ability to not wear at least one striped item.

Stage scrum? er... rather large, except it was mostly made of middle-over 40s respectable theatre-going crowd, with a lot of men in suits. This does not happen. Women, yes, but the men in suits? :blinks: And yes, he was adorable as usual, doing his usual 'signatures first, then photos - but I can only do one photo per person since I've got to get back to Cardiff for filming first thing'. Scott hurrying out early, with many a squee from the JB crowd of 'Scott went thataway'. No, we haven't developed a strange little side-fixation, honest. Oh shush. He's adorable, can you blame us?

Oh, and for the US lot : insurance-led healthcare may finally be getting changed.