Where has all the Content Gone?

Where has all the new content gone?

All my latest stuff can be found at my proper site brightmeadow.co.uk which I have got working again, so update your bookmarks.

If you are worried about your RSS feed, check that you have and not some other sneaky little bugger pretending and redirecting you somewhere that you shouldn’t be going.

Can you forget about this particular little website here at wordpress.com? Don’t forget about it totally as it is my safety net for when (note the use of when in that sentence, not if) things go hinky with my server, but as a general rule, check BrightMeadow.co.uk first 🙂

See you there!

Cxxx

Like a Phoenix from the Ashes

BrightMeadow.co.uk has risen, mythic-creature like, from the rubble of what turned out to be a hack.

Yes, someone thought that Bright Meadow was worthy of hacking! (For the intrigued, it turns out that this was the problem).

Anyway, thanks to the sheer glory of that marvelous personage known as karmatosed, who spent this morning fingertip deep in sql databases, order has been restored to my blogging universe. I cannot begin to tell you how great that feels! Plus, I am now running WP2.5 on that domain (about bloody time too) so have access to all sorts of shiny new stuff and features. The one I am currently loving is the ability to tinker with my template from within the admin panel. No need to mess around with ftp!

Yay!

There are lots of other lovely benefits, but before I totally geek out, just take this as notification that life is back where it belongs at Bright Meadow. I will be posting there/here from now on, letting brightmeadow.wordpress.com retire into the background (though I expect I might have to return to it if/when my server gets wiggy again!). I have done sneaky things with the feeds once more, so if you read through RSS, you shouldn’t notice any change.

If, however, you aren’t sure, the correct feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BrightMeadowFull and this is the correct comments feed.

At some point I am going to see if I can merge the databases so posts from wordpress.com will be folded into the archives here. If I can’t do it automatically, I’ll do it the old fashioned way and copy/past across!

That’s it! Thank you SO much everyone for sticking with me through this debacle (yes, it rates being called a debacle)

I Am What I Am Not

What follows is one of those times when blogging for me really is therapy. Feel free to look away now.

All my adult like I have been struggling not to be defined by what happened when I was 14. I refuse to base my personality on some thing that happened because a doctor refused to make a house call. But, no matter how hard I fight not to be defined soley by what I don’t have – what got taken away; what I had no choice or control over – there is inescapably part of who I am now that is because of it. I am who I am, to some extent, because of what happened when I was 14 and all that followed after.

It is not a conscious decision exactly, but I am the type of adult I am because – possibly – the traditional female role as incubator of the next generation is denied me. Or at the very least made a lot less likely.

I never wanted kids. Even “Before” I never was one of those to play with dolls or to be the “mummy” when we played grown-ups. I identified with George in the Famous Five, not Anne. I went through puberty with the knowledge something was a little bit wonky with my insides and it affected my outlook more than a touch. I looked at alternate pathways. The alt-pathway is so much more fun so I’m not unduly upset, I will hasten to add. 2.4 still doesn’t hold much appeal.

I am trying to express something that is not all that clear to me. Do I say I don’t want kids because the biological chances are slimmer and I am in self preservation mode, or because I really don’t want kids?

Why am I thinking on this now?

Because after ten years I have finally wrested a diagnosis from the doctors and that diagnosis is PCOS.

I have been tottering around some sort of diagnosis for years, but for the past six months I have been undergoing the latest in a long (and slow) running barrage of tests and explorations all designed to ascertain really how fucked my reproductive system is. We know it is screwed at least halfway round the thread, but is it tightened all the way down, that is the question?

I was dreading actually getting a diagnosis. I couldn’t put my finger quite on why till I forced myself to realise it is because I am not sure I really want to know. Getting answers means – well – it means you have answers. An answer of “actually, all is normal and tickety boo” peversely would still throw me as much as a “you’re totally screwed Ms Kemp”, because the former means I have no excuse. “I can’t” is somehow more acceptable than “I don’t want”. “Don’t want” just makes people smirk knowingly and count down the days till you conceive. Plus, “don’t want” makes you look selfish. “Can’t” gets sympathy.

“Can’t” and “look at other options” are part of my identity now.

Much though I thought I would not define myself by a negative, I am defined in my own head partly by my (potential) inability to bear children. To be told I actually could would, bizarrely, take away a crutch and force me to reevaluate my self out of my comfortable hole. Then again, the alternate diagnosis of “oh shit…” is not exactly a comforting prospect either. “Oh Shit” forces you to deal with different problems. To have it confirmed means… I don’t know what it means.

Basically, ignorance is bliss but my mum told me to get to the bottom of the matter and I am a good girl, so I am doing as I am told. A tentative PCOS diagnosis two years ago was nice. The assorted symptoms fit and it explained a lot but didn’t confirm/deny anything so I was still in blissful limbo land. The doctor (and my mum) wanted a final set of scans to make sure.

So I got the first scan only to be told the “Oh shit” option.

Turns out? The “Oh Shit” isn’t much fun either. It is never a good sign when the radiologist goes silent and mutters “oh dear…” under her breath. Oh goes “Wow…” when measuring bits and pieces on the screen. Turns out a 6.5 cm cyst is not the best thing to have. What would have been nicer is that she could even have found the other ovary at all, but it is probably just very good at hiding.

That’s it. No “worry/don’t worry” just a “my Grandma, what big cysts you’ve got”, which completely looped me out. Of course the NHS website is very soothing about these things and logic dictates if it was seriously worrying I wouldn’t have to wait 6 weeks for a follow up, but even my basic understanding of biology leads me to think an unexplained lump 6.5 cm big anywhere in your body is not a good thing to have.

At the end of the first scans I was further down the Oh Shit branch of reasoning and – you know what? – it is not that comforting after all to have a decade of suspicion reinforced. It would have been nice to have it all over-turned and be forced to reevaluate myself as a “have options” girl instead of firm up the “no chance” argument. Save me from pity. Save me from myself. Save me from my brain hurtling round my head at a gazillion miles, with none of the stations it is likely to stop at looking particularly inviting. I am making a mountain out of a (fairly) large cyst, I know that, but experience tells me to plan for the worst. I am reaching hatch-battening time and dear god I think it is going to be a big storm.

I got the results of the second scan and, as expected, PCOS is where things are at. All things considered, it was more a storm in an extra-large Starbucks mug than anything else. Still stormy, but it could have been one hell of a lot worse.

All the way through I was convinced that ignorance and “who the frack knows what is going on in there?” were bliss. I would rather have kept at the guessing stage than the whirlygig my thoughts and emotions have been on lately. But now I actually do know what is going on, I am rather comforted. As there was never any chance of a “you are normal” diagnosis, the diagnosis I have been handed is about as “nice” as could have been expected. On the scary scale we are talking a PG as opposed to a full on straight-to-video 18+ it could have been.

Labeling things is so very satisfying I find. Once you name something, you set limits on it, make it definable, approachable, surmountable.

I can see a way forward now. I know my options and I know what I have to do. At the same time I don’t like it confirmed that from now on I am the girl without her health. My body is making it very hard to be anything other than the girl who defines herself by what she hasn’t got. I am rapidly becoming the girl I never wanted to be. The girl who others pity. Seriously, if I was a dog you would have had me put out of my misery by now!

I saw the speech therapist the other week and we got to the bit of the consultation where you have to list your medical history. Ten minutes and several pages of notes later, she said “My, that’s quite a lot to have happened in one so young” followed by her being annoyingly (but sweetly) sympathetic and asking if I had had counseling to help. Actually, I have. She asked me if I was angry. I was.

For the longest time I was very, very angry at the doctors, at myself, at the universe, at my family, at everyone. But anger just takes it out of you and now it it is just the situation I have to deal with. Things could be worse, things could be better. Things just are. Why waste your time wishing things were different? This is the life you have to live so you might as well get on and enjoy it.

She says, over and over, because saying something often enough will make it come true.

I have PCOS. Many people have it worse than me. It turns out that the assorted medications I could take to help are, for one reason or another, not suitable for me. Which is a state of affairs that doesn’t surprise me if I am being honest, because I never was one to make it easy on myself. So I am left with lifestyle change and a future that is just so depressingly healthy.

I think that is what is bugging me most now. Oh, for a magic pill I could take to make everything all right and that would let me keep on living life (and eating) as I want to live life and eat. But there is no magic pill. I need to take responsibility for myself, depressingly grown-up though that sounds.

*shrug* It’s all character building, right? If nothing else it means I have things to write about on the blog.

*update*
I’ve got some amazing and touching responses to this post – thank you.
If you’re worried you might have PCOS, you have PCOS or you know someone who does, I would recommend you talk to a healthcare professional. There are also lots of very good support groups out there such as Verity in the UK and these in the US.
If you want to talk to me, but don’t want to leave a public comment, please feel free to email me on cas.brightmeadow[at]gmail.com

Sunday Roast: cheese is particularly troublesome

Sunday 20^th April – how has the past week treated y’all? You join me here at Meadow Towers in a veritable bundle of nerves, excitement, and full of the joys of spring. Part of this is because I made the decision to ditch the evil pills a week ago and… phew. I had actually been starting to think that the manky feeling was normal which just goes to show how you can get used to things. I am once again relishing the simple joys of eating, having energy and generally not wanting to curl up in a ball and die. It turns out that I am not the consumptive heroine of my very own Victorian novel. Bliss. Which is fortunate when you find out I had to go be impressive in an interview for what could possibly be the first step on the way to the dream. Well, I say “impressive”, in reality I was shooting more for “not make a complete fool of myself” and the jury is still out on that one, but it is all good experience.

All week people have been asking “how did it go?” only for me to snap their heads off and then roll out the “there is no way I am getting the job” spiel. Luckily they all know me well enough that I am just talking myself into a state of mind to cope with the disappointment I have lined myself up for. What do I really feel under the bravado and que sera sera? Sometimes I think that it didn’t go too badly, that I rock and that they would be fools not to hire me. Other times I just want to do the ball-curl-die thing because I just don’t have what it takes. Well, “early next week” will bring the answer to all of our questions so fingers crossed for me, please?

And now the reason you all came here:

We all know that Moose run free here at Meadow Towers, but now they are in the wilds of Scotland as well.

Turns out we really are living in the age of science fiction, what with working ion drives and everything.

I’ve written at length on the need for people to have a defined identity online, so I should be all joyous that the BBC have introduced registration to comment on their blogs. Right? On the whole, yes I am. You can track what someone has said around the assorted BBC sites. You seem to have profiles (though they are depressingly light on customization – at least let me link to my own blog?). It could be good. Then again I am not sure “to fight spam” is the proper reason to enable registration. Engender community, yes. Filter the crap there are better tools around for already? Not so much.

Think back a week or so to when Nils got a celebrity stalker and we all asked who was actually hitting the keypad because it sure wasn’t Gordon Brown? Turns out, it’s this chap.

Now, did I just completely miss this story about UK police on Facebook in the UK media, or have the UK media just missed it? I am not going to go into the pros/cons I feel about the actual story because given my line of work I am really not sure what I think, however I AM interested to see if it is even a story over here.

Pink doesn’t stink, or so says the Guardian.

Because we need us some cute!!!1 (yes, I made stupid awwwwwwww noises when he started to swim. I defy you not to 😛 )

I’m on record as lusting more after Bond’s car than Bond himself, so it was painful to see this morning how it ended up in Lake Garda. Not even in the line of duty either!

The Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting archaeology of tattoos.

I stumbled across this interesting paper examining how the BBC has adopted the new media technology of blogging (pdf document). Thoughts?

Comments have dropped off lately (*sob* don’t you all love me any more?!) so perhaps I need to look in more depth at the mechanics behind people commenting.

Following on with the “I wish I could notebook like this” theme…

Things you don’t know about lifts (that’s elevators for you Americans).

Pan Macmillian joins the simultaneous release of e-books and paper books. DRM free as well?

If only it really happened this way… Prehistory would have been so much more fun if Dr Slater had used Mitchell & Webb as teaching tools!

Interesting sounding book. To the wishlist with it!

Twine: the semantic web in action?

And two trailers to end this week. Remember, keep those fingers crossed everyone!
Mr Lonely
Chaos Theory

The No Diet Diet

Moose took pity on me this week – something about seeing me go completely fruit-loops over todays interview (and why on why do you always think of the perfect answers to questions on the train home?) made her step up to the plate and write the following. Good Moose 🙂

The spirit of self-improvement has permeated through Meadow Towers and I have finally succumbed. While trawling through the library the other day I came across the No Diet Diet. The authors posit the theory that, generally, thin people have a positive attitude on life and fat people have a negative attitude. Therefore, if you are over weight and you improve you attitude your weight will reduce. Now, appreciating the fact that I’ve just reduced 60 pages of text to two lines, you can’t help being a little sceptical at such a broad statement. However, I am more than aware that my attitude towards life could do with some adjustments, so having read through the 4 week programme I’ve decided to give it a go.

Each day there is a task, one which is designed to help you break habits. The day 2 task was to spend 15 minutes writing – something you wouldn’t normally write. I’m always amazed at how much Cas puts herself ‘out there’ on the blog. Sharing personal stories with the great unknown scares me frankly. So that’s what I’ve decided to write and she has agreed to post it for me. This is how a short story changed my life.

I don’t like my name. Positively loathe it. Ever since I’ve been little it’s been shortened and that’s fine with me, but my full name I just can’t stand. When I was a teenager I decided that as soon as I was old enough, and had the money, I would officially change my name. I began looking for alternatives and had quite a list by the time I was 19 and then something happened. I read a book by Gloria Naylor called The Women of Brewster Place.

It’s a series of short stories all set in the same apartment complex. One of the stories is about a militant young African American woman and her mother. The young woman is determined to change her name because it’s a ‘slave name’, given to her by her ancestor’s owners. Her mother is upset. She wonders what slave owners have got to do with it; she and her father gave the young woman her name. She sees it as the young woman’s rejection of her parents. It made me stop and think. My parents gave me my name. I didn’t have a name for the first week of my life because they couldn’t decide which name would suit me best, so I know they put a lot of thought into it. They would be upset if I rejected their name. So I didn’t change it. I still don’t like my full name and only use it on official paperwork but I’ve learned to live with it.

Sunday Roast: come midnight you’re the wedding fairy

No roast last week after all but as I am the new and improved no excuse Cas, let us just leave that aberration in the past where it belongs and start afresh, hey? Tell me what you think about the new template here on Bright Meadow 2 (I’d forgotten the joys of quick switching, bless wordpress.com) – I like it. There are things I’d tweak, but it is more in the direction of where I want the shiny new Bright Meadow to be going. I haven’t forgotten brightmeadow.co.uk, honestly! It is sadly just a little bit down the list of priorities after family celebrations and job interviews and doctor stuff and… Gack!

This is excuse territory, isn’t it? The proper site hasn’t been forgotten. I want to be back there and soon. If there was a simple way to merge the two without loosing my archive, then I would seriously contemplate letting WordPress.com manage the back-end for a while, but I don’t think there is a simple way to merge the databases. If you know better, shout up!

Followers of twitter might have seen me dash off to London on Friday for the CCMs 60th birthday. The whole family descended on the Rules restaurant for a surprise party. It all went off without a hitch, some panicked dashing from tube to flat, back to tube, then sneaking down backstreets (the ONE time the Circle line was quicker than the Northern had to be Friday night!) not withstanding. I will say heaven help all of us is the fate of the world depends on the Kemp family remaining calm during the execution of a plan!

I think I have vacillated long enough. Ignoring the stack of bookmarks I have to wade through will not get this roast written any quicker…

I saw the speech therapist this week and she has decided that my voice reflects my general state of wellbeing – which is to say, a big pile of smelly horse poo. She was also impressed/horrified with how tense all my back and neck muscles are. Her main advice (along with assorted vocal exercises designed to make a fool of me)? Relax and pamper myself. Now this advice I like, so perhaps I need to meditate myself well?

Going traveling? You could do worse than have a quick check of the CIA World Factbook

Having worked to help assorted people into training and employment for the past two years, I have to say I am not really surprised at the revelation that careers advise is patchy in this country. I would be tempted to go one further and say it can be “dire”, especially for the legion of adults with lower skill levels.

Are you dreaming of a 3D web? I like the idea but you know what I really want? One of those snazzy immersive 3D computing environments I keep reading about and seeing in sci-fi. Give me my 21st century technology already!

Do we really want our government following us to our social network spaces? Me, I am not sure. It comes down to choice: to take the Wembley example used in the article; I choose to go to Wembley to listen to the advice that will be dispensed to me (what I do with that advice is another matter). I can also choose NOT to go. It is/would be much harder to make this choice were the officials to come to me on social spaces where I have no expectation to see them. You also run the risk of large numbers of people missing out on this specialist information being dispensed. Take the example of advice on additives also used in the article. Yes, the users of the particular network where the NHS official steps in gets the benefit of immediate and accurate advice. What about the legion of people not registered on that service? Is it realistic to expect that NHS official to spread the word across the entire net? Far rather, perhaps, for the information to be in once central place (i.e., the NHS website maybe?) and then people can go looking for it when they want it. And they can trust this information to be up-to-date (because can you also expect that official to go back and update the advice he left six months ago who-knows-where when the perceived wisdom changes?)

The Venezuelan’s don’t like the Simpsons, preferring Baywatch instead. To be fair, who can blame them, but is it really more “appropriate” for children?!

Has the conversation moved into the flow? I won’t use me as a case study as I am just pants at commenting anywhere, but what are y’all finding is happening with your conversations?

One of my all-time favourite photographers has a book for sale. Go. Buy!

The Internet is stopping authors writing. Not because it offers endless distraction as you might think, but because of piracy is making some big-name authors loose out on some royalties. I over generalise but the tone of the article just irritated me. What about the ways that the internet is helping authors? One line does admit that Amazon “has found that its “Search Inside” function… has increased sales.” Or generating interest for new books through word of mouth and other marketing techniques? Making people who would otherwise never get a book deal, get a book deal? Yes, it is a time of change, but the internet is just a tool. Potentially scary. Potentially exciting.

Look at your Twitter in a different way

To counteract the doom of the Times article, have a look at what Pan Macmillan are doing to the eBook. A lovely special edition, with more content than the print version, drm free, and open to bookmarking and annotating by you, the reader. (Note, “drm free” does not equate to “free free”. You still have to pay money for this!)

Fantasy or Science Fiction? I am an equal opportunities reader and wallow gleefully in both fantasy and SF titles (I think I picked up Azimov and Clarke before McCaffrey, but it was a close run thing), but apparently that makes me an oddity. What does it for you?

I have always had a little part of me that wanted the lifestyle of a traveller. To pick up and take my home wherever I would… The CCM is actually living the dream to an extent – whilst tied to the corporate machine for a certain extent, his home is as fully mobile as the canal network allows it to be. There is something truly wonderful to just move, having a different view each morning if that is what you desire. I like roots and my space but this way you take your “space” with you. *Dare to Dream* says the romantic in me! So it is always good to hear of people acutaly doing it. Now I just need to find me a career that enables me to travel like this!

What makes a good book review?

Trailers for Abi (lots this week to make up for there being none last week!):
My Blueberry Nights

Jack and Jill vs the World

Meet Bill

Hellboy II – the Golden Army

Then She Found Me

Falling for Grace – good old mistaken identity and class division; where would romantic comedy be without you?

Usually I end with the movie trailers. This week, I’m going to end with a request from two crazy friends who are running the London Marathon right at this moment. Donate, don’t donate, that is up to you.
Cat – running for beat
Hannah (who is also doing the New York marathon later this year. Double crazy!) – running for the Alzheimer’s Society

And that is me done. Wow that took longer than usual for some reason! I now have to go write an online marketing campaign, somehow turning these notes into a coherent plan. *whimper*

Enough is Enough

It is time to stop with the excuses. You know, I think I might even have run out of valid ones.

Lately I have been letting things slide in all portions of my life, including here on Bright Meadow, to the point the only thing I was getting better at was making up excuses why I wasn’t engaging with things. No more. There are valid reasons for some, though not all, of this slippage back into what I term “hermit mode” and I have been very fortunate to be surrounded by incredibly supportive friends and family. In particular thanks Neko for holding my hand through some unpleasant scans, acting as the voice of reason, and then taking me shopping for a giant beanbag. This last was as completely random as it sounds, but still a remarkably effective post-hospital stress/anxiety buster!

But now it all has to stop. It is time to stop talking about all the things I want to do with my life and actually start doing them before I turn around and see half my life gone down the tubes. I didn’t do resolutions this new year, so perhaps it’s time for some “Spring-time Resolutions”?

First and foremost I’m taking back Bright Meadow. There has been a downward trend over the past six months and, whilst people are still saying nice things, I know my content could be better. More regular if nothing else! So from here on I am going to instigate the one thing I never thought I would have to do: a posting schedule. It turns out that I work better to deadlines, so deadlines I shall have to give myself. If that little bit of pressure, even self imposed, is what I need, then so be it. We’re not talking anything drastic here, just a Roast every Sunday and a post every Wednesday. I expect I will fill in around that framework, but that will be the minimum you can expect. The world won’t stop spinning if I fail in this goal, but I do give you permission to yell at me! Also, I’ve got one get-out-of-jail-free card a month. Sometimes life genuinely does get in the way.

Related to this drive to reinvigorate the blog, I hereby pledge to once again reengage with the assorted communities I have been neglecting shamefully lately, be that email, Twitter, 9rules, Chawlk, or just my friends down the pub. No more turning down invites because I just can’t be bothered or feel a little antisocial. Experience has taught that getting out of the house is a good thing and that I invariably have fun once I am out! I really do like playing with new people and I am not going to find them curled up on the sofa watching endless episodes of SG1.

Thirdly, but perhaps most importantly, I know I need to talk control of the health aspects of my life. Some bits are always going to be broken and I need to stop waiting for a magic pill to make it all better. A lifestyle change is what I need to have, so a lifestyle change it will be. Neko is doing it and doing it with her usual grace and flair so I know it can be done. It won’t be easy but I’m on the right track already with the gym three times a week and yoga. Now I just need to fold in some changes to my nutrition and all will be hunky dory. I just wish eating healthily wasn’t so much effort. I like cooking but I just find it a faff to do it every evening (mainly because of the washing up I will admit – perhaps I can persuade Moose to let me plug the dishwasher back in?…) but enough of the excuses. When your choices are eating better or diabeties, heart disease and cancer: well, healthy eating suddenly becomes a bit more appealing.

Lastly I really need to get my finger out with the whole “move to London, get a job in publishing” thing. I have made a start and actually applied for one job (*eek*) but I need to be doing a lot more than that. Applying for other jobs would be a start because all my eggs aren’t going to fit in that one basket! Then there is the finding somewhere to live and…

One step at a time. Job applications and interviews are two big hurdles that have to be overcome first!

So there we have it. The four step plan to the new, shiny, excuse-free and improved Cas^**. Hope you like her, because I think she’s going to be even more fun than the current version!

^** Very much a work in progress though!

Huh? But it’s Sunday!

As the observant among you might have realised, this isn’t a Sunday Roast despite it being Sunday afternoon.

Why, you might very well feel justified in asking. How very dare I not provide you with your weekly offering of the best and weirdest that the internet has to offer?

My reason, and it is a good one, is that I had to pop back to Somerset for the Mummy Bear’s birthday and I’ve only just got back to Meadow Towers. I really don’t have the time or the mental energy to do a roast right now; if nothing else, I have a job application to write (*eek*) and my new meds are still making life… interesting.

Will there be a roast tomorrow? Hopefully. Most likely. Tell you what, I’ll tell my boss I have to be home early to feed the ravening Net hoards 😉 Will that satisfy y’all?

Giants and Pygmies

The following comes from a conversation I had with the Crazy Canalman as we were driving around London the other weekend. He wrote the majority of this post so please hold in the back of you mind the knowledge that we hold wildly differing political beliefs.

As an aside, I am still not sure if I am fully comfortable with my father writing for my blog, but then, it is better than the alternative of him trying to forbid me do it (I’m too old for the rebellious teenager look), and even I am having a hard time picking apart our writing styles.

Just goes to show you can never underestimate the impact your parents have.

Driving round Parliament Square at the weekend, I mused over the great that have graced the Palace of Westminster: Oliver Cromwell, William Pitt, Disraeli, Gladstone, Attlee and even the Blessed St Margaret.

What do we have nowadays to compare with these giants that have saved or changed a nation and the world? Blair of the focus group and dodgy dossiers; Brown of the control freak zero personality and chewed fingernails (how can we be represented by such a man in the councils of the world) and Cameron of the hasty empty gesture. Churchill, notorious though he was for his love of a stiff drink, a cigar, and about as round as he was tall, had gravitas and left indelible marks on the world around him.

Ever since politics became a career, rather than a service to the nation that a few accepted as a duty, we have suffered from a steady decent into government by the self serving, concerned only to save their own skin from the consequences of their failures. When was the last immediate resignation following a ministerial blunder? Instead a steady progression from “… has the Prime Minister’s full support” to a forced exit and rapid reinstatement only for the sorry tale to be repeated.

I long for the return of politicians that one can expect to maintain a position from election to implementation. That will speak their minds without one eye on the polls and, damn it, lead. To be able to choose between towering giants and their convictions, rather than the lesser of two mediocraties with barely a shade of grey between them.

Mathew Parris was not wrong when he asked where was the leader capable of the thought and passion that we can trust to lead us in these uncertain times.

I envy American Democrats right now. They have a choice, it seems, between two great potentials. I think to those standing in UK elections and I am hard pressed even to remember the name of one of the party leaders. Conviction and passion seem to have become dirty words in a climate where politicians bend over backwards not to offend too many people. Is it too much to ask, for a leader who goes “this is what I believe, and I will stand by those beliefs”?

Sunday Roast: thy beard is an offence against decency

Other than declaring my coolness to the world, how has this week been in the land of Meadow Towers? Uneventful. My shiny new pills that the doctor promises me will set things back on an even keel are currently taking their revenge with some interesting and not-to-be-shared-on-the-blog side effects. These will settle down soon and then the benefits will be reaped (woot!) but right now the cure is worse than the disease!

Still, all will be well and Stargate SG1 season 10 has finally arrived, so at least I have something nice to watch whilst I am feeling a bit manky.

It used to be “only in America”. Now, we can add only in Hawaii to the list – a man takes a horse to hospital to visit a patient

There is an interesting piece in the Comment is free section of the Guardian this week about the right to online privacy and the implications of recent proposed changes to the law

After sitting watching iTunes move libraries around last night, I can’t say I’m quite as enamoured with the progress bar as this chap, but they do have a certain charm I will agree. Especially at work – when our client database is having a hissy fit as it does lots of the time, I have to sit and mollycoddle it. It’s quite nice, sitting there whilst it thinks through the error of its ways, having a legitimate reason to do nothing. Not that I do nothing at work you understand!

Ah, the humble postcard. We all know I love them, right?

Something to remember. It wasn’t Power Rangers with me, but the Clash and “London Calling”. Great track in any other situation.

I wish I could ice cakes (that’s frost to you Americans) as well as this: Sushi Cupcakes (via Abi)

We live in an increasingly distributed and digital world and sometimes a physical notebook just can’t hack it. Why not take EverNote for a spin (I have some invites if desired).
The screencast totally hooked my attention and Matthew kindly got me an invite. Then I logged in and found I needed Leopard (10.5) to use the handy desktop programme and I went all 😦 Still, the web-clipping is really rather snazzy and I love its OCR capabilities. I took it for a spin yesterday on some pics I had snapped in the bookshop of titles I didn’t want to forget and it worked just as advertised on all bar one, but that was because my cameraphone quality is pants, rather than EverNotes fault.

There is a new Archaeology magazine out there, Past Horizons, that interests me more for the way it presents the magazine in digital format than anything else. The snazzy interface, from digipage.co.uk, is slick and made me raise an eyebrow momentarily. But then I’m easily impressed. It will be interesting to see how it develops and what others think of the interface (I expect my initial “ooh, snazzy” feelings will soon fall by the wayside of more mundane usability issues).

Torchwood is to do a one-off radio play. Well, it can’t be worse than most of season two now, can it? Roll on season three and the rumoured “reset” is all I can wish for. You know a TV show is bad when I’m predicting whole chunks of dialogue and plot twists five minutes before they happen!

Want some free SF? You can’t go wrong with Hugo nominated stories from Ken Macleod and Greg Egan

Windows user and fed up of me yammering about the wonders of the distraction-free environment WriteRoom gives me? Try Dark Room 🙂

Read my nemesis on the subject of the relationship of Archaeology to the Indiana Jones films. So perhaps nemesis is putting it a bit strong as Holtorf does make some interesting points amidst the waffle. As an aside though, I do find it mildly entertaining that someone so vocal at one point on the subject of hyperlinks uses them so sparcely within the body of the text… OK, enough. Read, enjoy (or not) and discuss. I clearly have some thesis-related issues to deal with in private…

Downing Street is (apparently) on both Flickr and Twitter. The whole thing is making me sit back and have a little think on the pros and cons. Why NOT have the people who run our country try to reach out? At the same time, it does feel a little bit like they are trying to do what the cool kids are doing. Which brings me to my first slight niggle. How are they choosing who to follow? Nils is being followed. As it should be, he is a very worthwhile chap, but he isn’t UK based. Surely it would be better to follow your own electorate first? And who is it who is actually making the decision on who to follow or not? Who is reading the tweets at the end of the day? I have this absurd image in my head of Gordon Brown sitting there, glued to his BlackBerry, as the tweets pour in, going “Oh, look, shiny17 has just fed her cat! Good for her!” or “Look everyone at this great YouTube clip that JohnSmith just posted”. Then there is the thought he’s following Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton on Twitter…

Ah, isn’t modern politics great?

Only one trailer this week, and I wish it was a better one for you Abi…
The Love Guru. I will say right here and now, as forcefully as I can I HAVE NO DESIRE TO SEE THIS FILM. I was cringing the entire way through the trail. So why link to it at all? Because there is a priceless Justin Timberlake bit at the end. They are announcing who is staring, going “Mike Myers… Jessica Alba… Justin Timberlake…” and… Both Moose and myself dissolved in to helpless cackling. Well worth the watching till the end!