You had plenty money 1922

( vague spoilers if you haven't read the book but all the reviews talk about this anyway )

:is off to find fanfic:

Mother has taken up baking. and now she's making marmalade. We shall see how far this experiment goes.

Yesterday, in a drive to get mum's preferred honey, we buggered off to Ewelme, a village in deepest Oxfordshire. OMG COLD. V. picturesque, though. Honey's nice and is sold from the village shop, which is staffed by volunteers. And has tasty baked goods. Pootled around church, which is fucking *massive* and had me and dad going 'benefactor?' 'Yeah, someone was worried about their immortal soul' and playing the guessing game of age due to architectural features and art (they didn't stint on the inside, either). We'd figured up to 16th century until we came upon the altar and the little bit of paper that gave the actual low down. 15th century, it turns out, seat of the Duke of Suffolk. Which is also known as 'seriously rich.' Has the tomb of Thomas Chaucer and his wife, who was the father of the Duke of Suffolk's wife. Tom was the son of Geoff, and the family tree... huh. Didn't know Geoff's wife Phillippa's sister married John of Gaunt. From there both sides of the family is like a litany of 'which buggers got involved in the rather nasty game of politics' - Percys, Poles, Greys, you name it.

had made resolution to start jogging this weekend but that got scuppered by the emergency application of hot water bottle. A bit annoyed with self since I really need to get on with finishing some of the fic in my notebooks (I think I posted all of 2 pieces last year) and all I seem to want to write is AU crappy original 'verse.

Switched on Radio 2 to get the Legally Blonde cast appearance, and got dad to run screaming from room. He has allergies. rather amused by the fact that on this show (Elaine Paige - musicals and film music) you don't just have to state the cast, you have to state the year.

Finally succumbed to watching Glee. Watched ep 2, waiting for 3 and 4 to dl. A bit irritated by the way they're portraying the teacher's wife as rather 2D, but glad she's getting a bit more depth once she finds out she's not preggers. May have bust a gut laughing at the kid in the wheelchair getting to do the pimp act during 'Push It'. Please tell me the minority kids are going to get more lines and some more personality...

How to know you may be fully subscribed to a cult : you see an interesting article on DNA vaccination by tattooing, and your first thought is to email a writer who specialises in futurism and cyberpunk. Helloooooo, Cult of Ellis. Why yes, I do probably qualify for Filthy Assistant status.

Currently struggling with new phone and trying to figure it out. It's very shiny but now I have to learn where all the functions are in the menu. Also, because it's a slide rather than a flip phone, I believe a phone sock will be needed to protect the lens and screen. Oh, and will be poking customer services a lot when I get home because it says it's possible to bluetooth over the message inbox and managed to bluetooth over all my media files (the important things, like ringtones and wallpapers) but keeps going 'sorry, failed' on the inbox thing.

Greatly amused. You know how some pubs just attract a certain type of clientele? The Battle Inn in Reading (oh, shush, it's on Battle Terrace which actually commemorates a civil war battle) has long had a certain rep - the grills over the windows and police cars lurking outside are there for a *reason*, furniture gets thrown at least four times a week - and, well, everyone used to say it was because it's long been an Irish pub with um, no IRA sympathies and smuggling, honest guv. What's amusing? It's slowly being colonised by the Poles. Who are doing exactly the same thing re: furniture throwing. Apparently fights just... start.

Oh well. Could be worse, could be the Boar's Head on Friar Street which used to open every 15-20 years and get shut down by the police within a minimum of six weeks - they finally knocked it down a year or so back because it was structurally unsound and actually crumbling (and to all those local history restoration lot wailing about it getting knocked down - I notice from the forum posts that you never went in there after, oh, the *1960s*. Stop whining. And OMG, they modernised the interior so it no longer qualified for preservation? WORKING. BUSINESS. That the breweries put a bunch of money into to try to attract different clientele.). Every local used to just eye it as soon it was opened and start laying bets when it would get shut, even if you were nobbut a babe in arms when it was last open.

Hrrm. Has anyone ever done that as a story? Buildings that have a type of behaviour so entrenched in them that it doesn't matter what you do, the same behaviour just keeps going over the centuries? The phenomenon's pretty well known...

Have Richard Marx's 'Hazard' stuck in head. And the usual cure of showtunes and christmas songs ISN'T WORKING. (the usual theory is that you listen to something even more annoying and catchy). Graham has just dumped the A-ha greatest hits cd in front of me as a solution and I'm poking it suspiciously.

Send help. :whimper:

I love Ugly Betty far too much for words. Especially the evil twinnage of Mark and Amanda.

BSG? Pootling along in their screwed up fashion. :pats entire cast: Bless. And ooo, Mark Sheppard? (Badger from Firefly and things like 24 and X-Files to you) As a lawyer who... oh, the sunglasses. Mmm, the sunglasses. and a realistic Irish accent. (the one that's the soft gravelly one - it's not Belfast, that's all I know)

Rome. Oh god, show, never leave me. Pullo. Oh, Pullo. Mark Antony in eyeliner and henna/tattoos. Octavian sex scenes? :falls over in drool puddle: Also, Livia. It's nice to see that you are really intelligent and calculating under the cutesy. We approve.

End of season approaching. Thing is, I don't know if they can do a third series, since it's not as clear an arc - first one was very clearly going to end with the Ides of March, and this one was about the ascent and then dissolving of the Second Triumvirate with Octavian winning. The third? There's not exactly a 'big event' that's known by general public about Augustus' reign and he was rather long-lived. It's not like you could suddenly jump to Tiberius and then Caligula - not to mention the sheer aging and so on you'd have to do of the main cast. Plus? Caligula and Claudius are descended from Livia's *other* kid (the one who was born about four days pre-her marriage to Octavian, rumoured to be Octavian's but really, really not since he didn't actually meet her until she was a good couple of months preggers with said sprog), who married Octavia and Antony's daughter, and the series has only mentioned Tiberius (not to mention Caligula's mum is Julia and Agrippa's kid - Julia being Augustus' kid from his first marriage - the Julio-Claudian family tree is *guaranteed* to give you a headache). Rome, I love you but your trimming of all the kids means you've kind of shot yourself in the foot for the production of future Caesars.

Saw the first ep of Miss Match. Whose pitch was so very clearly 'Clueless grown up'. Alicia Silverstone has irritated me in everything except Clueless, but since she's quite clearly playing Cher (seriously, second gen lawyer daddy's girl with a thing for matchmaking and clothes?), this is actually enjoyable. Complete fluff, but fun fluff.

Still not got round to watching the SG-1. It lurks in my downloads folder. I think at this rate I'll be watching my shiny new dvds before I do. And possibly even the entire season of Dr Who before I watch SG-1. Reminds me, need to watch S3 Entourage before new eps start.

Just read an article on the BBC about some bloke who tried to say he was a claimant to the throne in the 1930s.

The words 'rightful heir' get thrown about a lot. I know there's some bloke in Australia who insists he is. I just... :facepalm: These people have clearly been reading too many ballads and fantasy novels. There is no such thing as a 'rightful heir' or 'true heir' when it comes to thrones and the position of royalty. Just because so-and-so is the eleventh-generation descendant of a deposed king/the crown prince that got smuggled away by the loyal retainer the night there was a coup and the nasty mean uncle took the crown, this does not give him anymore claim to the throne than the average pigkeeper. The next pigkeeper you come across may very well have a fuckload more 'royal blood' than said 'rightful heir', because royalty, as has been very, very well documented throughout the ages, has a habit of shagging everyone from the maidservants to the courtiers. The amount of maidservants that got sent off with a bit of money to hush them up is untrue. The amount of mistresses and actual *acknowledged* bastards is also untrue.

Kingship is conferred by *force* and *power*. Whoever has the throne at the time is the rightful king. See the Wars of the Roses for a good example. Also see the Georges. And best of all, William the Conqueror. Note the title. I haven't seen any relatives of the Godwinsons laying claim to the throne since 1066. The rightful heir is normally the most direct heir the current king has, and if said heir gets ousted when the king dies for being too weak too hold onto power, the traditional and correct response to any whining from them or their descendants is 'Tough luck, Sonny Jim, come back when you've consolidated enough power and influence to get yourself on the throne by either family connections, force or looking like a very stable marriage candidate with enough political power to prop up the current regime.' (see William of Orange for that one) Charles II only got invited back because he seemed a stable choice politically, and Parliament realised a politically astute figurehead with no illusions about what they could do to him if they really got pissed off was a good idea. Also note that this was *after* Cromwell died.

Of course, the romanticists' view is not helped by Tolkein. Aragorn only gets the throne because he has the elves backing him, friendship as a half-decent general from the Rohirrim, a bit of charisma, the instability of Gondor post-War of the Ring and Faramir doesn't want power the way his dad ruled. Yes, that's right. *Ruled*. The Stewards of Gondor were only Stewards in name. Like Pratchett, if that throne had been made of anything other than stone, it would be a mass of wood lice and collapse when you poked it. If Faramir hadn't been severely injured, had a bad experience with Dad going nuts, and also hadn't come under the influence of everyone who'd been affected by the elves' political manouevering and the general approval from the Rohirrim (who never actually supported him as a throne-claimant, they just didn't mind having a good fighter on their side), Aragorn wouldn't be within a sniff of that throne. And even then it's mostly Aragorn consolidating power whilst Faramir was recovering from his injuries.

Besides, people going on about the whole 'bloodline being passed down the ages from son to son, and there's also this ring and sword' bollocks - um... what makes you think there wasn't an affair on the mothers' side on occasion? The only thing you can absolutely, definitely prove in any pregnancy or birth is who the mother is. DNA testing only goes so far, and most of these stories don't have anything like that to guarantee it. Not to mention any of them that have the genetic power thing in there as a tester, hello, bastards, plus very probable that mummy dearest had an affair with another noble who in all likelihood had the gene as it was (nobility being a pretty small genepool).

:breathes: Rant over. Honest.