You had plenty money 1922

For the blondes : Has anyone noticed any actual difference to your hair colour when using shampoo/conditioner marketed as 'for blondes'? (normally advertised as containing camomile). I use it, but I've never really noticed much difference in colour between that and the normal stuff, even though I know camomile has been used as a hair lightener for millennia.

Boss told us to stop having a science debate. Boss MEAN.

...I just found out someone at work doesn't believe in evolution but... does believe in adaptation to environment? Whut? How does that reconcile? Genetic adaptation to environment *is* evolution.

Why is it samphire is bloody impossible to find in supermarkets?

Reading Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. Partly in a challenge to self to see if I can make it through a classic C19th novel that I love and adore the adaptation of. (Dickens, I can't get past the first page without chucking it across the room in exasperation with his sodding bogged-down prose. Austen, I never seem to get past the first page without someone grabbing me, so have no idea.) It's definitely readable, though slow going.

However, the writers have definitely changed it quite a bit. Same basic plot so far, but most of the religious stuff (discussion and religiousness of various characters) is cut out. Beginning scenes in Helston that show what day-to-day life was like're completely scrapped due to being pretty much extraneous. In general it's far more streamlined. Lot less self-doubt/inner turmoil on behalf of Margaret, and it's made clearer much earlier that Mrs. Hale is really sick rather than just mildly depressed, and it's a pre-existing condition. Mr. Thornton? Far, far less physical. (that intro in the factory scene doesn't exist, and nor do any of the other inside the factory scenes, and you get very little general impression of Milton itself) Really somewhat peeved that the Higgins family (Bessy and Nicholas) are nowhere near as interesting in the book, and that Margaret's relationship with them and the workers is far more peripheral. Bessy's got bugger all character aside from being ill and dying and looking forward to the kingdom of heaven. Nicholas you only see in glimpses for the most part as a permanently angry overworked union man, but you don't get any sense of the union itself, and Margaret knows bugger all about the strike even coming. Waiting to see if Nicholas' character changes much now that Bessy's dead and the strike's all but over. Boucher's weakness is really peripheral. Interestingly, the female Thorntons and Dixon are identical to the book. Guess they're easier to translate to this day and age.

Somewhat of a weird experience. Most of the adaptations where I've read the book, I read the book *way* before the adaptation. (Jungle Book, Discworld, Skellig, LOTR, Harry Potter, Fight Club) Had the characters pretty firmly fixed in my head and was less irritated when they got changed/cut because the book was still there, and would be quite pleased if they went to the effort of expanding or making something make more sense (see Narnia films). Now I've got a case of '...this is somewhat disappointing'.

But anyway, TRAILER OF SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE : "Paul Bettany Kills God As Charles Darwin: New "Creation" Movie." http://yttwt.com/kug9v (added bonus of Jeremy Northam as a clergyman. Heather may need time in her bunk.)

...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 one of those 'huh' moments. Paper about using visual clues to figure out what might be wrong with someone, using Renaissance paintings of the Duke of Montefeltro to illustrate it, pointing out that the Duke's always shown left-side only - you might notice the slight gouge in his nasal bridge if you've seen the pictures. That? Jousting incident. Which also lost him his right eye, hence always only that side of the face. The second point was more subtle. His neck's always thrust forward, and if you see full-lengthers, it's only then that you see his back's kind of skewed. They went through three possible's, but reckoned the most likely was related to the jousting, since the Duke had been going to war since the age of 15, and his main profession was as a very successful (and thus rich) soldier for hire. Lots of armour, lots of horseriding, lots of full-body knocks = back go out of joint.

And can't believe I'm actually even acknowledging Lent (paid-up staunch atheist, FSM member, Jedi and Cthulhu cultist), but two bishops advising cutting carbon for Lent. Go on. Try it. If nothing else it'll cut your energy bills and you'll feel smug about it.

Also. I know that Keith Szarabajka has a role as a cop in the new Batman film. I am praying my head off that it's Harvey Bullock because that's the only one I can think of who fits the description we were given by Sean. Can I find him in the cast list on imdb? Can I bollocks. And of course there are no fansites for Keith. :mutter: psmorrison, you owe me Batman gossip. I mean, admittedly I'm dribbling over the actual character list - Sal Moroni! Commissioner Loeb! Babs! James Jr! (oh, writers of recent films, so much cast of the GCPD and Gotham City underworld porn...)

Huh. Really, really huh. ciderpress, this week's Radio 4 science program (just finished, should be able to hunt down on listen again) was on dissonance - the way you react to it, the automatic response to it, social conditioning and whether it was learned and also how it contributed to social cohesiveness, with studies and speakers from the Max Planck Institute.

They went through history, the times when musicians have used it to create effects, and then showed you it - took a bit of Debussy, then played you it again a tone up, then a tri-note down, then played it all together and geeeyahhhhh. They'd also done some studies with a tribe who'd never been exposed to western music to see if it was a learned response, and they have the same reaction. Then came when they played the Bach. They twisted the chord structure a bit so it wasn't in the same grouping, then played you the 'normal' structure, the 'expected' structure, and the expected one was visibly more relaxing. And then revealed they'd done experiments with the two versions to see what our emotional response is - the more dissonant one actually ignites the part of your brain that handles fear/flight. Sweatier palms, hairs up, faster heart rate... They reckon it's an ingrained social cohesiveness thing, related to 'dissonant noises bad, please to flee or be on your guard, nice noises good and a sign that everything is going well'.

Which got me thinking about nasal voices and how you can see everyone else visibly cringe and tell themselves not to have a negative response or judge someone who's got a nasal voice.

Oi, blythely, have you been influencing policy again? here.

Also : ponycake the plot for half the eps this upcoming S4 SGA

Fandom : there's always those characters that make a single/couple of ep appearance that fandom takes to their hearts and loves ridiculously or scars onto their brain (you can normally tell by their regular appearance in fic or icons). And it confuses people who haven't watched the show, because they were expecting this person to have a much bigger role on-screen. Sometimes the fandom love is so big that the producers and writers notice and bring them back.

Torchwood :

PC Andy Davidson
DCI Kathy Swanson
Jubilee Pizza delivery persons (okay, admittedly the boxes are omnipresent in the Hub)

Dr Who :

Lucy Saxon

SGA :

David Parrish
Kavanagh
Jeannie Miller
Miko

BtVS :

Ethan Rayne (became an occasional recurring because the writers/producers liked his effect)
Devon (had, what, five lines total?)

These are just off the top of my head. Feel free to add.

For those who didn't hear, who're tangentially related to comics fandom : Mike Weiringo died on sunday of a heart attack. 44, completely physically fit and... meep. He co-created Impulse with Mark Waid, exceedingly talented, apparently a ridiculously nice guy

Also : This article is somewhat fabulous. The stuff about Genghis Khan's traceable lineage has been floating around for a year or so now, but it's the glee of all the anecdotal stuff of him having loads of descendants (one 13thC historian claimed that he had 20,000 alive in that period) and tribes posturing and claiming that they're descended from him ... and then when they traced the genetics and the area found in and so on it was the only explanation that made *sense*. 8% of the population of central Asia. 1 in 200 men alive today.

And Angkor Wat : bloody massive city, architect of its own demise.

ah, job. What you do to my visual squick levels. 'oh, tumour. meh. bored now. what I'd give for an interesting bile duct.' 'oooo, is that - ? wow, bleeding recurrent tumour that punctured his abdomen wall from his intestine? cooooooool. And it's getting a bit of necrosis? *fascinating*.' (seriously, the guy had a recurrent bleeding hole about five inches from his bellybutton through to his intestine. for *years*.)

Or to put it another way, article today was a case report on some poor sod with elephantitis of the scrotum which had put him in a wheelchair. Elephantitis is one thing that will *always* get me to look, for some reason. And it turned out to be just the scrotum before and after in the way of pics. We're talking worksafe for accountants, here. See me mutter and pout because it was just that boring, and then scroll to the meat of the article and go 'oh good lord, diabetes mellitus being the root cause *again*? Does that condition have *nothing* better to do?'

After a while, everything looks like a variation on the insides of someone. With interesting growths. You long for bile ducts and necrosis.

And the point of this? I don't watch slasher films. I have no desire to, partly because I've never been into horror films for the most part - my type of horror is normally The Others, The Ring, 28 Days Later, Dog Soldiers, that sort of thing. But I'd dread what it'd be like for the other people watching with me to watch the most gross-out slashers. 'meh, intestines. huh. interesting fat dappling on that bit.'

To gack a phrase from Internet Jesus, Don't look. Especially not the last figure.

Am vaguely amused that gangrene is now a 'rare diseases' article, considering its prevalence in earlier times...

Observation of work of today :

Well, you all know we get very, very desensitised to any image of body stuff. Reaction being 'oh, look, a tumour/surgery. Ooo, that's a nasty one - huh. where the hell did they pull that one from? Ooo, ooo, bile duct bits!'. Just had one of a very large excised tumour and the eye next to it. (tumour the main problem, and it turned out there was tumour stuff behind the eyeball and the eye wasn't working, so they removed it) Looked at the tumour first, then realised the eyeball? Reminded me of nothing so much as bits of things like Brazil and other sci-fi fantasy where the monitoring system/camera is an eyeball on a stick, whether organic or completely mechanical. Seriously. Current media? We're very used to seeing detached eyeballs, or the image of detached eyeballs.

Watched Sunset Boulevard last night. Ooooo shiny. One more reason to make my shrine to Billy Wilder bigger. Terribly, terribly cynical film, and of course, with the musical practically on an IV, you had me making comparisons (aside from the fact that bunches of the dialogue is transposed directly into the lyrics/stage dialogue) between characters and situations. Aside from being somewhat freaked out by Norma Desmond's eye-rolling and claw fingers. And going 'omg, Buster Keaton? Really?' (I'd known that a couple of silent names made cameos in it, but Buster Keaton was one of the bridge partners? Really?) Plus, much love for Cecil B. Demille. No, really. Just... shone in his cameo.

What's interesting is how characters are variously more or less cynical between productions. For instance, overall the Joe Gillis character is about even on cynicism - though the musical one is far bitchier and more bitter - though interestingly, the movie one is much more willing to take advantage of people/things. See the new clothes fitting scene where he makes far less protest about accepting expensive clothing and relaxes easier into playing the gigolo.

Betty Schaefer comes across as far more sarcastic/wide-eyed in the musical, but the movie one's more accepting of how the system works, and you get a feeling she knows how to play it better, which implies the wide-eyed is kind of surface.

Erich von Stroheim? A lot less imposing as Max than I'd have thought, though it may be due to his physical stature more than anything. Norma Desmond? Film version a lot less calculating and more inclined to hysterics than the musical. Mind you, from what I've heard, manipulativeness of Norma (knowing exactly what she's doing with the hysterical fits) varies on production and actress. Later ones *much* more manipulative than the early ones.

Listening to Doctor Who commentaries (Doctor Dances and Empty Child), as is my wont on tuesday afternoons, being the point of the playlist that I usually get to by tuesday afternoon. Have clearly listened to these two comms far too many times since I can anticipate every damn comment and point in the commentary in which it comes.

bigtitch posted some scaps of the extras on the third Torchwood dvd last night. Damn you, Matt Rippy and JB. Must you do this to my brain? Me and Meg stared and gibbered something chronic. And it is not helping my desire to write a WW2 story of two airmen in love. No I don't need to research this like mad. at all. Especially not in time for nano. Have learned my lesson, Nanowrimo needs to be a story I know inside out that I can extrapolate on and expand and twist.