Jake (to EJ): "You've got a history of picking up young drivers."
DC: o_O
EJ: LOL

Rubens WTF??? I'm shocked he blasted Brawn like that. From a driver who played second fiddle to Michael for years, you'd think he'd know how team dynamics worked. Wow, stupid.

Yay Fluff for getting fourth :D

Can't stand Mark Webber but good on him for winning, he deserved it.

I had to laugh at poor old Lewis: "I want to get a podium!" *smack* "Crap, I'm last!"

Frank: "I'm never an optimist where F1 is concerned" - LOL I've forgotten how much I like Frank.

I don't think it's spoilery to say I blubbed through the end of this ep. Dear God, this is some of the best television I've seen in years. I just hope they don't cock it all up in the finale.

Gwen has lost loads of weight and Ianto ate all the pies.

My mum went out for a walk in Derbyshire with my aunt and uncle last week, and while looking at the well-dressing, they spotted a baby hedgehog.

( Cute spiky animal )

F1SS fic finished, beta'd and sent off.

Going to watch NCIS now XDDD

Back in October last year, I posted about a guy who'd been charged under the UK obscenity laws for writing a rather distasteful fanfic about Girls Aloud.

Today he was acquitted of the charge.

( More about it here )

Sign-ups for this year's F1 Summer Slash have begun! Like a deranged fool I have signed up! Yargh, I mean YAY!

lixia84 - You were so, so right about Painting Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalogridis. OMG I think that's the biggest Mary-Sue I've ever read in professional mainstream fiction o_O

I admit I was totally thrown by the cover blurb that says Lisa falls in love with Giuliano's son. Because of that, I kept thinking Giuliano the Younger was really Giulio, and not Lorenzo's son but his adopted son. So when the whole thing about her being Giuliano's daughter came out, I was thinking 'eww, you've had a child with your half-brother, ewww'.

That's the second time this year that a cover blurb has been a total misdirection of the book it describes!

So what happened to Giulio? He didn't get a single mention :/ I liked Lorenzo, though, for the short time he appeared in the book. Thank God I only borrowed it from the library, I'd be upset if I'd bought this one LOL

---

Went to York yesterday afternoon and actually did some sensible shopping rather than schlepping around not buying anything. Watched RC1 last night with diagon, who commented early on that ZL is surely in love with anything male and heroic (Zhao Yun, but then he is The Man; Zhang Fei; Guan Yu). I'm sure he'd fancy Cao Cao if only they'd met *still wants this fic*

I spent half the film waiting for a specific scene, only to realise it was in fact in RC2. Doh. Will watch RC2 tonight.

LMAO Aqua have a comeback single! It sounds just like their old stuff! Fantastic!

"Back when the coolest thing in store was a Commodore 64"... ROFL

Title: Orange Blossom
Summary: Summoned to the Shishinden, Hiromasa finds Seimei deep in conversation with a tree. As usual with Seimei, nothing is quite the way it seems.
Rating: PG
Word count: 4371
Notes: Written for ozsaur’s prompt of ‘flowers’ at smallfandomfest.

Orange Blossom

Hiromasa was roused from his mid-morning nap by a breathless, wide-eyed page, who handed him a note folded into four. Still half asleep, Hiromasa glanced at it. He exclaimed and jumped up, shaking off his drowsiness as he circled his room trying to pull on his cloak. He hurried through the palace, the trailing length of black brocade flapping behind him. At the thought of presenting such an inelegant spectacle, he blushed and paused to straighten the fall of the silk. The page, chasing after him and carrying his boots, almost ran into Hiromasa’s back.

“Wait.” Hiromasa pulled the note from his sleeve and looked at it again, just in case it proved to be more forthcoming on closer inspection. Occasionally, Seimei sent him letters with writing that appeared and vanished and changed content. Hiromasa doubted anyone else at court could do such a thing, but it was best to check, just to be sure.

( Read more... )

EJ: "There's a lot of people who want to see Max Mosely on a cross."

Thanks for that image, EJ. You've probably seen Max up there a few times yourself. Ewww.

ETA: Never thought I'd say this, but I think Jonathan Legard is more annoying than James Allen.

I was just scrolling through LJ and the Yuletide stories of the day popped up and I was amused by the fact that I'd managed to post my last two fics back to back, when all of a sudden I saw that some kind, wonderful person (misura) had written me not one but TWO Yanagisawa/Hoshina stories for NYR. I was literally about to finish my coffee and make dinner, but after squealing and flailing I read both stories and am now all floaty.

I'm gobsmacked. And very, very happy and grateful.

The fics are Touch: A Love Story, which is a set of drabbley-things charting Yanagisawa's relationship with Hoshina - and some of these little snippets are heart-breaking but they're all so perfect in what they say - and there's also The Cat Case, in which Hoshina tries to prove his investigative skills in order to impress Yanagisawa. Clever, cruel, and bang-on with its characterisation, I absolutely loved this.

I am very happy.

Yesterday evening (after a nice day out at Kirkham) I put the rubbish bag into the wheelie bin and, as today is bin day, was about to move the wheelie bin onto the pavement when something rustled from the random greenery behind the bin. I moved the bin and something small and greyish-brown leapt out.

I yelped "Uahhhh!" (embarrassing, as our neighbours were having a barbeque)

I thought it was a massive rat, but when it broke from cover and legged it across the lawn I saw its white tail and realised it was a young rabbit.

We have open countryside not too far away, but I never expected to see a rabbit in the garden - especially as one of our neighbours has a pit bull and on the other side Steve is always test-firing guns!

Very relieved it wasn't a rat.

Title: The Three Ages of Man (an equal part of nothing)
Summary: The fox Kuzunoha feared her son would turn into an animal, selfish and cruel. Seimei’s humanity comes at a cost to both mother and child, but in the end it’s a price worth paying.
Pairing: Seimei/Hiromasa
Rating: PG13
Word count: 5246
Notes: Written for ozsaur’s prompt of ‘tangle’ at smallfandomfest. It ended up as more of a character study of Seimei than anything else, for which I’m grateful for many reasons. There are two versions of Seimei’s early childhood: one in which Kuzunoha’s deception is uncovered by Shinoda no Shoji, and the other in which Seimei himself notices Kuzunoha’s fox-tail beneath her robes. I’ve gone with the latter version. The translation of Kuzunoha’s poem is from A Guide to the Japanese Stage by Cavaye, Griffith & Senda (yes, I only bought it because Mansai wrote the foreword... αγάπη υπερβολική). Also, a sly reference to Oedipus, just because.


The Three Ages of Man
(an equal part of nothing)

Seimei is five years old when his mother abandons him.

Since birth he’s been able to see things hidden from ordinary human eyes. His earliest memory is of faces peering into his cradle, grey faces, red faces, faces with horns from their foreheads and fangs curled from their mouths. He comes to like those faces more than those of his parents. His father seems ordinary in comparison, and his mother, though beautiful and refined, appears strange. Often he sees her features flex and move like a blossom tossed by the breeze, but by the time he learns to speak, he knows better than to ask her about what he’s seen.

Seimei is a precocious child. He can write long before he can walk. His father, Abe no Yasuna, reads poetry to him. His mother Kuzunoha talks to him of demons.

( Read more... )

Yesterday I went to the opticians and was told that the opticians in NZ had given me the wrong prescription. Considering I went back to the NZ optician and they'd re-tested my eyes (prescription 2 being wildly different to prescription 1), I find it staggering that they managed to get it wrong again. And also it's disturbing and rage-inducing, though it's made my left eye stronger to compensate for my failing right eye and the wrong bloody lenses.

My right eye is now sufficiently bad that I get free eye tests and a very small amount of money off the cost of the lenses. I'd rather pay for the test than have such crappy vision :/

After another week of painting accession numbers, I have RSI again.

Last night we went to see Angels & Demons for the laugh value. ( Cut for possible spoilers, not that it would make any difference )

I really think I should stop watching Eurovision once the songs have ended, because the voting just winds me up. Marginally less political voting this year but still everyone votes for their neighbours. And there's always one dickhead amongst the jurors who talks too much or tries to heighten the tension by refusing to give out their results - I think it was Slovenia this year.

Someone explain to me why Norway won? The singer looks like a smug child and the song is forgettable. But! Norway isn't in the EU and it has very high taxes, so they can afford to host the show next year! And maybe Morten Harket will be the host again.

Poor old Denmark, the Scandinavian country everyone forgot this year.

My scoring was massively skewed by the addition of our 'Hotness' column, which saw the Ukraine and Germany getting 9 and 8 points respectively. I loved those hoplite/gladiator dancers for the Ukraine and thought the two dancers for Germany were very sexy. Dita von Teese didn't really need to be there.

My top ten:
1. Ukraine
2. Germany
3. UK (I thought Jade sang brilliantly - easily one of the strongest voices of the night, even though the song is boring)
4. Turkey (it's nothing we haven't seen before from the Turks but she looked good and the backflip dude at the end was hot - dunno why they had the other male dancer there, he looked really out of place)
5. Armenia (actually I thought this was a great song and I loved their outfits)
6. Azerbaijan (hated the male singer but the girl was stunning and she could sing really well; a catchy tune, too)
7. Finland (this would've been higher if it didn't have the rap. Loved the female vocals and the tune)
8. Bosnia & Herzegovina ("They look like they've escaped from Les Miserables")
9. Spain (pretty girl, catchy song, looked like she should be on Strictly Come Dancing)
10. Estonia (it was just very nice)

The ones I scored lowest were Portugal (it annoyed the heck out of me), Sweden (why bring an opera singer if you make her sing below her range for most of the song?) and Russia (the girl could sing well, but she appeared to be wearing a towel and that gigantic face in the background was horrible and distracting).

It was a better ESC than last year but for the first time ever (apart from last year, obviously), I didn't vote. It was all a bit disappointing, really.

Two sparrows are attempting to shag outside my window. The female is wriggling her tail and fluttering her wings while the male is flying about and attempting to mount her. The female is sitting on a thin branch of a weeping birch and it's quite windy. The male doesn't have a hope in hell but like men everywhere, he's not giving up on his chance of some action.

We have a perfectly good roof. But no, the female wants it in the tree.

We missed semi-final 1 on Tuesday for the simple reason that we didn't know it was on, so last night we sat down with our BBC print-outs and scored each song, with the addition of a 'Hotness' column. Since so many songs are instantly forgettable these days, we also gave each entrant a keyword, e.g Cyprus was 'Bad Disney'.

My lowest score out of a possible total of 40 was 2 for Cyprus, which was unbelievably bloody awful, and my highest was 35 for the Ukraine (described by our commentator as "a stripper and some gladiators in hamster wheels"). I think most of my top five went through, except for the one with the violins and the woman behind the passport control curtain who sang about three lines. Great tune but they needed more of a song, and why did the vocalist only turn up on stage 30 seconds from the end? Weird, but this is Eurovision after all.

I was a bit disappointed with the Greek song. Sakis is a great singer but IMO that's a weak song and the performance was cheesy (his keyword was 'The Hoff', which says it all, really). We did laugh at the sunbed with the Greek flag in it. Wtf.

Denmark's song would be so much better if Ronan actually sang it as well as writing it.

I think this is the first year ever that I like all the songs from the Big Four. Usually France can't be arsed, Germany and the UK fluctuate between sending joke entries or try-too-hard entries, and Spain either sends dirges or bland Costa del Sol pop. This year they've all made a real effort so I expect (political voting notwithstanding) to see most if not all of the Big Four in the top 10.

I don't think the UK will win. Jade has a great voice, looks good and has Andrew Lloyd-Webber with her, but I doubt that's enough to clinch it. Unless I'm wowed by any of the entrants who made it through from semi-final 1 (like Malta - I really want them to win because they're so enthusiastic, but realistically, I doubt it), my vote this year will go to Germany, Spain or the Ukraine.

Just to be showing my Eurovision spirit, I'm making flammkuchen tomorrow (Val - since we came back from your place I've been seeing flammkuchen everywhere in recipes, except they call it by the French name!) and a big tiramisu for dessert. I think we have some Euro wine somewhere, too.

To quote our commentator: "The Belarussians have given me a half-bottle of vodka. Do you think I should start drinking it?"