The Tigger of Wrath

It's 2026. How did that happen?

2026-01-01T13:16:57Z

Linear time, obviously; it's the only one we've got in this part of the Universe, and it tends to flow in one direction. Roger Waters' lyrics from 'The Dark Side of the Moon' are definitely weighing on me, though. "Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time..."

Anyway, here's half a page of scribbled lines.

Still here, still in the same place in real life. This year will hopefully when some long overdue renevations to the garden happen. We've started with a new shed, which given the old one was being held up by the shelving inside it was probably a good thing.

The solar / electric system continues to do its thing. On a sunny day last December, we were getting just over a kilowatt from the panels. Those, however, were very few and far between, and most of the time we've been charging the battery in the small hours on the cheap rate and feeding it out during the day. There'll be a one-year report sometime in April/May.

As for other places you can find me:

An Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murphyslawyer. Robert Heinlein once wrote: "Writing is not a profession. It is a disease". This is how I mitigate my symptoms. You don't have to go there.

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/menageri.org.uk. Troublesome, imperfect, but it works for me. See Mastodon.

Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@murphyslawyer. See Bluesky.

Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/kawaiibarbariansublime: light-hearted bantz and reposting things. This, as they say, is the way.

I also run two small websites: https://www.menageri.org.uk/, which is a holding page leading to stuff about the Eastercon UK Trade Mark, and https://www.arkeology.org.uk/, which is an electronic version of a comic/zine I put together for Valkyrie Press on completion of their run of Bryan Talbot's 'The Adventures of Luther Arkwright'.

And there we are. May the year be kind to you.

comments

Gone Solar

2025-04-20T20:58:30Z

Seeing as it’s been four months since I last posted here, I thought it was time to bring you up to date on the solar panel and battery installation, and the results.

It didn’t get off to the best of starts – the scaffolders turned up on 26 February, took one look at the house, sucked their teeth and went “It’s taller than three meters, innit?”. This being the case, they put up what they’d bought to halfway up the first floor and left muttering dire threats against surveyors who only use Google Bloody Maps. I didn’t point out this was slander against the surveyors, who turned up in person with a drone and a laser thingy that does those trigonometry problems you got in school to find the height of things like, you know, houses. Anyway, the scaffolders came back a couple of days later to finish their part of the job (and did it well, to their credit) in time for the actual installation on 1 March.

The installers told us to expect them between 9 and 10 AM, but must have had a headwind up the M1 because they turned up at 8.45. After showing them where the mains switch and fuses were, and making some suggestions where to fit the inverter and battery outside (current regs require indoor fittings to be in a room with two exits, and the old coal hole in the cellar didn’t count), we left them to it. They finished by 1PM, handed over some paperwork, and left to go back to London.

Here’s some photos. Click to enlarge if you feel so inclined.

Panels on the South roof. That’s a lot of scaffolding.

Panels on the East roof. If you click to enlarge, you can see the anti-bird mesh between the panels and the roof. This stops anything nesting or sheltering under the panels, which does them no harm but can leave a lot of guano on the tiles.

The battery (10kW) and inverter (3kW).

Where the power goes into the house, near the mains switch.

All the electrical gubbins. There’s a smart meter at the bottom and a comms box on the right. I’ll post again on how they’re working when they’ve been running for while longer.

After running the setup for about a month, our electricity bill has come down by just under a half of what it had been the previous month. This isn’t just due to the days getting longer: we had an exceptionally good spell of fine weather and clear skies which gave us a 10-day period where the panels and the battery supplied all the electricity we needed. Among other things, this let us do a serious amount of washing and dry it on the lines in the garden rather than the rack in the kitchen, and still leave the battery topped up at 100% at sunset.

A system graph from 10 April. The pale blue line on the top graph is the solar power collected, the red line power consumed. You can guess when we ran the washing machine. The bottom graph is the state of the battery, which starts and ends the day at 60% or thereabouts.

So other than the scaffolding, everything went exceptionally well, and I’m glad we eventually decided to do it. As I’m typing this up at about 10PM, the battery’s still reading over 80% full which will take us well into tomorrow morning. There’s some heavy clouds and rain expected here for a couple of days next week, but this was never going to be a fully off-grid setup. If nothing else, we may soon be selling our surplus power back into the grid – not a lot daily, but it will all add up.

Oh yes – the scaffolders took nearly two weeks to take it all down again. I have a sneaking suspicion we were being used for temporary storage…

comments

Going solar

2024-12-20T16:25:53Z

We've just put the deposit down on a solar panel and storage battery system. Looking it as a long-term investment for the house. We have no plans to move, and it goes to the kids to live in after we've gone.

I'd have preferred not to have paid the deposit this month, but the installers offered a free upgrade to the latest version of the storage batteries. Apparently they have built-in heating so they can carry on if the temperature drops below freezing. While we're unlikely to have the same experience of the Canadian cybertruck owner when winter killed its batteries dead and past any hope of recharging, sub-zero temperatures around here are always a possibility even nowadays.

We'd have liked to have had the batteries put in the cellar, but regulations now demand whatever room they're in has two exits, so outside on the wall they will go.

Other tech advances from the earlier days when we first looked at this include optimising circuits which will let part of the panel generate electricity even if other parts are shaded, and bird mesh to stop nest building under the panels. We may have to have our local roofer go up with a hose to wash off the mess when he comes round to do the annual gutter cleaning, though.

That is, hopefully, the last bit of adulting we have to do until next year. Time to wind down.

comments

Gazing, perhaps too long, into the Abyss

2024-05-19T12:14:52Z

Yesterday, an obsession of mine ended with the arrival of a small package from France containing the Blu-ray and 4K disc releases of James Cameron’s 1989 film The Abyss.

A quick spoiler-free recap for those who haven’t seen it:( if you have, feel free to move along )

The Abyss marks the start of Cameron’s love of all things aquatic, which led to Titanic about eight years later and gave us Avatar: the Way of Water in 2022. Not yet in possession of a budget that cost more than the Titanic itself, or the long-term loan of God’s 3-D IMAX cameras, Cameron had to be content with building a set at the bottom of a power station cooling tower, flooding it, and spending an incredibly unhappy time with the cast and crew in it. Yes, everyone had underwater and safety training. Yes, there were rescue divers for when things went wrong. Nobody died. But there are several moments when the actors were called on to show fear, and they were not acting when they did so.

The result, on-screen, is a very good action film until the last half-hour with some SFnal overtones: all of the tech was either in use in the real world or was prototyped and looked feasible. The last half-hour is a good film with some incredible ideas, but not as well presented as what went before, and definitely on the fantastical side which does not mesh with the harder SF of the earlier part of the film. This is a lesser disappointment in the Special Edition of the film which fixes the main problem with the original release: that looked like they just ran out of money and had to wrap it up. However, it’s still a bit of a let-down; there are some model shots in there which would have been much better if they’d been replaced by modern CGI, and heaven knows Cameron’s had enough time to do that.

The first hint that this film might get a better release than the 4:3 “letterboxed” DVD from the early 2000s was Cameron announcing in 2016 that he’d done a 4K scan of the original negative and would be working on it sometime. Seven years later, at the end of 2023, it looked like my very own White Whale would be in my grasp, with release dates announced for early 2024. Then the British Board for Film Classification pulled the plug.

There’s a scene in the film in which, in the words of the BBFC, an animal is subjected to on-screen cruelty. This is true: in the words of the animal’s handler, “she ain’t digging it”. Previous UK releases either cut the scene or focussed away from the animal so you just got the human reaction shots. Cameron refused to change the film, and the BBFC refused a certificate, presumably still content with the earlier films such as The Charge of the Light Brigade showing horses being hurt or killed retaining theirs (do a web-search for “running W” if you want to. It’s not pretty.). Anyway, this is where the package from France comes in.

Not having a 4K player or TV, I watched the Blu-ray version of the Special Edition. Sound was through a Roku Streambar. Both picture and sound were excellent quality. The picture’s been digitally processed to enhance some of the darker scenes and provide more background detail, but not at the expense of the original film shoot. There’s still some film grain, and faces clearly show lines and pores, unlike other restorations (looking at you, True Lies). The soundtrack was clear and crisp, and handled overall changes in volume with ease. Best for me, I could hear the dialogue, which is a welcome change from having to turn on the subtitles as i have to do with far too many more recent films.

Unless you dislike SF or action films, or have an aversion to animals being handled poorly, I’d thoroughly recommend adding this film to your collection. It’s nowhere near as bloated as Titanic or the Avatar films, the storyline’s tight up till the end when it relaxes just a bit too much but it’s still fun, it’s beautifully shot, and the cast gave it their all despite the set conditions. As for me, I’ve crossed off a long-outstanding entry on my to-do list.

comments

X-Clacks-Overhead-header:

2024-04-28T10:15:17Z

GNU Terry Pratchett

comments

It's sad

2024-01-28T12:35:12Z

To see an entity which you, and everyone else knew, was six raccoons in a trenchcoat, fall apart...

And then the raccoon fursuits burst open and a horde of beetles falls to the floor and scurries around in all directions...

Because the entity in the trenchcoat was old, and loved, though perhaps of late that love was not as well deserved as it should have been, and by and large did a good job. Or at least we thought it did.

But time has done its thing, and now there's just a trenchcoat and a pile of fursuits, and oh dear lord the beetles. Why didn't we know about the beetles? Did we not want to know?

Time to consider who, if anyone, can replace it all.

comments

It's annual Hugo Awards controversy time...

2024-01-22T09:05:44Z

To which the only comment I will make in public is that I am very, very glad I'm just looking after a Trade Mark that tends not to end up plastered on authors' books to hopefully boost sales.

More on that at https://www.menageri.org.uk/Eastercon.html

comments

Leaving Eccs

2023-11-18T22:47:14Z

Or the site formerly known as Twitter.

Everyone has their limits, and I've reached mine. Elmo's overt support of Judenhass (as Anti-Semitism used to be called before the Viennese got all prissy about it) is something up with which I will not put.

I may post more stuff here. It depends on how many spoons I have and whether I think I have anything worthwhile to say.

You can also find me on:

An Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murphyslawyer - yes, I occasionally write fiction. You don't have to go there.
Bluesky: murphyslawyer - an acceptable Twitter substitute for me, for now. I know who put it together, I know where it can go, but as of today, it's okay. Except for those who seem to delight in shouting about or at Mastodon: block, mute, byeeeee.
Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@murphyslawyer - interesting and okay for now. Except for those who seem to delight in shouting about or at Bluesky: block, mute, byeeeee.
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/kawaiibarbariansublime: light-hearted bantz and reposting things, which is how Tumblr works. Still works, even.

comments

"Amazing. Everything you just said was wrong."

2023-10-04T23:37:41Z

Luke Sywalker's line to Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi is I think the only sane reply to Rishi Sunak's statement today that "A man is a man and a woman is a woman. That's common sense."

Neither sex nor gender are binary in humans, let alone the rest of nature; and "cognitive bias" is a better term for "common sense".

But I'm not here to reason with Rishi Rich or his chums. I'm here to say to all the trans folk I know if you say you're a woman, or a man, then that's what you are to me irrespective of whatever you were assigned at birth or the state of your plumbing.

And that's not just because once the bigots think they've eliminated you from society they'll come for the bisexuals and the rest of the LGBTQ+ folk, the athletes with too much testosterone, or anyone who doesn't present as Ayran Barbie. It's because you're human beings and deserve better than being pointed at by people who, if they know more than how to hate others, are doing a damned good job of hiding it.

comments

Where to find me (August 2023)

2023-08-21T14:28:44Z

Bluesky: murphyslawyer - just a holding page for now.
Mastodon: https://mstdn.social/@murphyslawyer - the (more) serious postings site
Twitter: https://twitter.com/murphyslawyer - holding out because some contacts can't or won't migrate elsewhere.

comments

The Green Man's Gift

2022-10-06T11:39:36Z

(Smol disclaimer: this review is based on an eARC provided by Wizard’s Tower Press with no requirement to review it. Thanks.)

The Green Man’s Gift

By Juliet E McKenna

Wizard’s Tower Press

Daniel Mackmain, a dryad’s son, lives and works in two worlds. One is ours, the other is older, where forgotten history and those who lived in it sometimes really wish ours would go away. Or decide to hunt us. Or in this fifth volume of Dan's adventures and misadventures, something perhaps worse than that. Many of us were raised on stories which told us it’s unwise to mess with the Fair Folk, as they’re diplomatically called. But when they decide to mess with us, what are we to do?

In this case, Dan has a posse of wise women and some men (or perhaps he’s their on-call contractor) who would really like vulnerable young men not being kidnapped and used as elfin chew-toys. This takes him to Wales, which is carefully and lovingly presented, and absolutely not another part of England but is polite about it. There Dan must find the latest missing man, try to get him out of the Fair Folk’s clutches, and then try to work out how to stop them taking anyone else.

The first part is relatively easy thanks to the help of a local who we very quickly find out is not exactly what they seem. The second part is more difficult and is an excellent catch-up course in being very, very precise with a race who probably taught human solicitors everything they know about bargaining. As for the third part, our Dan has a criminal past, and if he’s not careful, or unlucky, that may just come back to place the long arm of the law firmly on his shoulder.

All of this makes for a delightfully entertaining read which ties nicely into the end of the previous book in this series, so while it’s not for newcomers to Dan’s tales, it’s a worthy continuation which shows Ms. McKenna’s writing off to really good effect. Recommended on those grounds.

You can find out how to get the Green Man’s gift from the Wizard’s Tower Press site here.

comments

I like to breathe

2022-09-15T21:39:58Z

I have sleep apnoea, and use a CPAP machine (ResMed 10) to get a good night’s sleep. As my other half so charmingly puts it, it also stops me from keeping the street awake with my snores. It’s become an absolutely essential part of my life over the last few years. There is, however, one small problem with it: it needs power to operate it.

No, scratch that – the problem isn’t with the machine, and it’s not small. It’s an absolutely massive problem in the shape of the Government that’s mismanaged the UK for the last 12 years, and whose laissez faire [1] attitude to the things that make civilization worthwhile – food, water, shelter, democracy and so on – have brought us to the state where not only is the cost of power going to be crippling to two-thirds of households in the UK by the end of the year, not only is the “uncapped” cost going to close businesses, factories, schools, care homes, but we’re looking at blackouts because we’ve [2] allowed the speculators who set energy prices to make a literal killing at everybody else’s expense.

I got the power

I’m not hopeful that this is going to get better any time soon, so I looked into backup batteries to power the CPAP machine. While there are official ones, they weren’t an option because:
•Their claimed runtime of 10-12 hours falls to 2-3 hours if you use a humidifier tank (raises hand).
•They’re eye-wateringly expensive (the one for my make/model of CPAP is offered at £400 plus VAT at 20% plus delivery.
•Both the power supply needed to charge it and the DC – DC adapter to plug into the CPAP machine come separately.

So I looked for other options, and eventually decided on this: an Atom Pro from Powapacs. It’s cheaper, and more powerful, than the official option (more on this later).

It’s an off-grid battery designed for camping, fishing, and other outdoor activities. As well as various USB ports, it’s got a car “cigarette lighter” socket and a mains socket for a variety of plugs. The 78,000 mAH lithium-ion battery is rated to power anything up to 150 watts constantly. The case it comes in is water-resistant and sturdy, and is closed by a decent zip.

Inside there’s a good amount of foam padding to hold not only the battery pack but the power adapter, the mains cable, and a USB cable with Micro USB, USB-C, and Lightning plugs.

The battery itself weighs in at around 2 kilograms (about 4.5 pounds in old money) and is very sturdily built. I wouldn’t use it to hammer in nails but it should take the odd knock.

The mains socket and 12V lighter sockets are on one side of the battery along with a torch: the USB ports are on the other side along with the power button and the charging input.

User testing

Because I’m a great believer in Reading The Friendly Manual, I made sure the Atom Pro was fully charged before using it. It came charged at around 50% and took about 4 hours to get to 99%. I was otherwise occupied so I didn’t get the exact time.

A good night’s sleep for me is anything over six hours. I managed six hours and forty minutes with the CPAP running all the while, and when I turned it off the battery was down to 70%. That means I can definitely get two nights, possibly three, before absolutely having to recharge; and if the power’s off for three days then this country has far greater problems than me snoring at night.

Caveats

Obviously, this is just a single point of data – one particular CPAP machine, one night’s testing. I don’t work for “Which?”. While it solves my particular problem, it may / probably / almost certainly won’t solve yours. (I do hope it may give you some ideas to find your own solution if you need one).

Finally, at £360 including VAT and delivery, it’s not cheap, and I know that for anyone wondering how they’re going to keep the lights and heating on this winter this sort of thing won’t be an option for them.

If you’re interested, however, you can find more information on the Atom Pro here.

[1] That’s French for “can’t be bothered to do our job”.

[2] By “we” I mean the Tories. And I didn’t vote for them, but they got in, and voting them out’s the only civilised option. Revolutions never go the way you want them, and rarely if ever end well.

comments

Fallout from leaving Cloudflare

2022-09-09T08:59:47Z

I now have to complete a puzzle for every single post or its comments that I click on. I assume this is because I have the temerity to use a VPN.

comments

Essential (but boring) stuff: Backups

2022-02-21T11:41:25Z

My home NAS (1-disc Synology) has started throwing up hard drive bad sector reports, and as the drive’s around 5 years old it’s time for a new one. This is the perfect time for a full backup of everything on the drive and not just the essential stuff that’s also backed up online. A bonus incentive is that Synology’s OS had a major version upgrade last year and I’ve been ~~putting off installing it~~ waiting for the early adopters to find out the bugs, so this is a good opportunity to:

- Backup the data and the configurations offline

- Replace the NAS drive (with a bigger one because why not?)

- Install the new OS on the new drive then reinstall the data and the configurations so if that all goes horribly wrong we still have a backup as well as the old drive which still works for now.

I checked the USB drives I use for the NAS backup and as the youngest of those is getting on for four years, decided to get another one because if nothing else I really need to keep to my quarterly offline backup regime. The new drive arrived yesterday (and much praise to the delivery person who was out in that). it’s a 5GB port-powered USB3 HDD in a case roughly the size of a pack of cigarillos. Plugged it into the NAS, set up the Synology USB Backup routine, and away…

we…

go…

Three hours and 30 minutes later, I’d backed up around 8300 files totalling 37.5GB. That’s around 23Mbps which would be embarrassing for USB2 let alone USB 3. Off to the Synology forums, where I discover people have been complaining about this for years. No joy there, so let’s run a little experiment: same folder subset, same files, USB drive plugged into a USB3 port on the PC. Synology’s app won’t work this way, so I fired up Teracopy which does, and has the added feature of running checksums on copied files: a really useful thing if you’re after good backups.

45 minutes later and we’re done. That’s just over 110 Mbps, which I’m very happy with given the data’s travelling over a contended LAN and being verified which takes nearly as much time as writing it in the first place.

Now, other backup methods are available, as are other copying programs. This one, however, works for me and if anyone else finds it useful, so much the better.

comments

A small spoiler for Evangelion 3.0+1.0

2021-08-18T19:28:14Z

One thing I was pleased to see in the latest, and last, Evangelion film ( Small spoiler follows... )

comments

The 2020 Hugo Awards, in brief

2020-08-01T13:03:17Z

I'm not glad I stayed up past midnight local time to watch the Hugo Awards ceremony. But it turned out to be necessary.

The good things first: all the nominees were worthy. (You can get a list of these and the winners at File 770 and a detailed breakdown of how they were voted for on Nicholas Whyte's LiveJournal.) Also, all the winners' acceptance speeches were relevant and noteworthy, showing why they were deserving of ths year's awards.

And now for the bad stuff, which takes up most of this post, because it took up most of the event. In other circumstances I'd write "what didn't go so well", but this was bad, and not just because I was up past my bedtime and having to stay sober so I could take notes. Here are some of them.

George R R Martin. If it hadn't been made clear at last year's Worldcon in Dublin that here was a man who, conciously or not, regarded himself as immune to criticism, then his pre-recorded segments will provide permanent evidence that this is, sadly, the case. [1] Chief among the many, many things he got wrong was not only continuing to mention the Astounding Award by its old name, but repeatedly namecheck the man it was named after and sing his praises, with no acknowledgement of his vices which led to the award name being changed. I only hope that Mr. Martin had the grace to feel uncomfortable when Jeannette Ng won the Hugo for Best Related Work, for the acceptance speech which led to that change and had the hall in Dublin on its feet cheering her when she gave it. [2]

While we're on the subject of names: The ConZealand Chairs, in their apology over the awards ceremony, state: "We apologise for the mispronunciations of names, and any disrespect implied. Phonetic guidelines were made available to us, and we did not overcome the challenges we faced. As Chairs, we accept full responsibility for this." I will point out that it wasn't the Chairs who were continually mispronouncing names. Others, elsewhere, have pointed out that if a writer can come up with Daenerys Targaryen he can bloody well learn how to pronounce Fiyah correctly.

In a similar vein, Robert Silverberg. I don't think he's ever really understood how misplaced and poorly received his criticism of N K Jemisin's acceptance speech back in 2018 was. And while I don't want to see him, or Mr. Martin, or anyone else, dragged up to publicly confess their lack of wokeness, neither do I want to see him given space to essentially say, you know, it's fine I can't learn from my mistakes.

I'm not going to blame ConZealand for what Messrs. Martin and Silverberg said. Enabling through inaction, perhaps; bad enough, but I see no proof of complicity. They have at least recognised that placing no restrictions on speeches has been a bad idea. Let's hope that future conventions take note and extend this to editorial rights, especially for pre-recorded speeches, and emphasising simple good manners for presenters such as calling people and organisations what they prefer to be called. Here is the obligatory XKCD reference for anyone going "Yes, but..." on this.

I'll finish with an aside from one of the other good bits to come out of this: Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech for the 'Good Omens' TV adaptation, where he made sure Terry Pratchett got the recognition he deserved. Terry wrote [3]: "There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having". This year's awards are now in the past. I'll carry on working to change the present. If anyone else wants to join in, or lets me join in what they're doing to do that, that will be good.

[1] Note to self: three copies, two different formats, one offline - and make sure they're also on the Internet Archive for good measure.

[2] You can read Jeanette Ng's 2019 speech in full on her blog, and it's also up on YouTube. I was there; it was electrifying and aweful to hear live.

[3] I shall wear Midnight.

comments

'Twas on the Monday morning OpenReach came to call

2020-06-01T11:22:47Z

Well they said anytime from 8am, and it was at 5 to 8 that yet another Chris rang the bell.

He certainly knew his stuff: used the existing copper cable (still used to run the phone) to pull the fibre cable along to the house, then ran it up under the eaves (a good job according to herself who was taught how to do it at college) and drilled through the study wall on the first floor so there's a direct LAN link from the modem to the hub. No more feeding DSL up through a phone extension cable with filters hanging out of every socket. Hooray.

Speeds are as promised around 150Mbits down and 30 Mbits up. Going through my VPN of choice, they're slightly reduced, but still far in excess of what we were getting on the copper line.

With me likely working from home for the duration, and all of us gaming and / or streaming, I think we're going to make use of the new speed.

Now to set up the wi-fi mesh that came with the hub, and see how that works.

comments

A small success story

2020-05-21T18:54:41Z

I'm a long-term BT customer: their TV offering's good enough for the family and the internet's been okay, but I'm coming up to the end of a two year contract. BT's website told me they had some offers for me as a valued customer, one of which was £5 a month off for what's essentially my current broadband service - same speeds, different name, rebranding and all that.

However, when I clicked on the link the website informed me I wasn't eligible as I was an existing customer. Rather than scream "bait and switch" for what was probably a slip-up (never attribute to malice what you can attribute to a mistake, etc.) I raised a complaint through BT's online complaints service.

Result: a very nice customer support person got back to me today, thanked me for pointing out the error on their pages, and organised the £5 a month off my current bill... while tripling our broadband speed and adding some improved wi-fi equipment in at the same time.I've long held that good customer service isn't about always getting it right, it's also what you do when things don't. Today, for me, BT delivered.

comments

The Sceptre, revisited

2020-03-20T22:41:47Z

About a year ago I posted a short story here. The world's in need of stories right now, so I've revisited it, and it's now available in multiple formats:

AZW3 (267kb)
ePub (65kb)
Mobi (266kb)
PDF (141kb)
7-zip archive (433)
Zip archive (665kb)

I hope you like it.

Techie bit: The story was composed in Word and saved as a PDF, then loaded into Calibre where it was converted to the other formats. It looks okay in my reading programs.

Legal bit: I'm releasing this story under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This means anyone (including you!) can copy it, convert it to another ebook format, print it out on paper, a t-shirt, your wall, somebody else's wall, put it to music... but you have to let anyone else do the same with what you've done, and you can't sell it for money.

comments

You won. Now what?

2020-01-30T21:24:19Z

Tomorrow, the UK leaves the EU. I don't begrudge those who arranged that a night of celebration, or the weekend to sober up. Because on Monday, their work starts in putting together a working agreement and delivering everything that was promised. And if they don't deliver, their followers may well get to them before everybody else does.

After the general election, when it became clear that some of us were happy voting for a racist, lying, philandering buffoon to lead us, and others hated him but hated the leader of the opposition even more, it was clear that we were actually going to leave. In a way, this was a mercy: the UK as a political entity has made itself unworkable with in the Union it joined, ans well as with itself. The odds are still against Northern Ireland joining with the Republic, or Scotland dissolving the Union, but they are not small odds, and the likelyhood will increase as the months go by and it becomes clearer that no, they won't be queueing up to make deals advantageous to us, they don't need us more than we need them, and there are still Those People Not Speaking English around.

Even if we manage to stay together without the Army on the streets (or more likely some cut-price Academi knock-offs), we'll still have to prove to ourselves let alone the EU that we want to rejoin as partners who actually want to engage, and not just squat and complain the way we've done the last three years. That will be down to us, if we want to. I don't think now's the time to start working towards that.

So, tomorrow. I'm off Twitter (I may briefly pop in and post a link to the Miyazaki / Diana Wynne Jones story I promised people), staying in, and getting ready for Monday.

After all, someone has to hold the architects of this thing to account.

comments

Lunar eclipse? Possibly...

2020-01-10T23:19:52Z

Tonight was the first eclipse of the year forthe UK. It was a very partial lunar eclipse, and while I didn't see it thanks to the cloud cover, I had an excuse to play with night mode on my phone.

( Pictures under the cut )

If you want to see the full-size photos, they're here.

comments

Another year, another subscription renewal

2019-12-18T16:33:07Z

Renewed on here for another year. Dreamwidth's free offering is generous, but I like to keep the lights on.

comments

20 July, 1969

2019-07-20T10:02:07Z

Fifty years ago today, I was sitting on the floor in the back room of Levis pub in Ballydehob watching the Apollo 11 moon landing on a small black and white TV, along with a lot of very loud adults.

What do I actually remember from then? I remember the actual landing, and begging my Mum to stay to watch the first moon walk. I remember Nell (pretty sure it was her), one of the sisters who ran the place, serving me a Cidona. I remember the TV was black and white, and small, and was very glad that small children were indulged by being allowed to sit in front of everyone else.

Most of this is probably true. But it's been fifty years and memory filters are well-known to be fickle.

"Here's a health to the men who walk the moon, and the module crew above;
"And the team that watches from the ground with worry, joy, and love..."

And a health to Nell, and Julia, and Mum for letting me stay up late.

Thanks.

comments

Eastercon UK - an announcement

2019-07-16T20:07:26Z

I was told today that some people are thinking of setting up a limited company to run the annual UK Eastercon.

While neither I nor Tim, my co-holder of the Eastercon trade mark (details here) can or should prevent discussing the future of Eastercons, we have not been contacted by anyone involved in this apparent enterprise.

Owing to personal and work commitments, we will not be discussing this with anyone for the forseeable future, including at the Dublin Worldcon next month. We will however be keeping an eye on any developments.

comments

Onwards, and hopefully upwards

2019-05-28T09:59:46Z

( UK political ramblings, pontifications, etc. Almost certainly nothing which hasn't been said before, and probably better. )

comments