Restful
Not a bad end to the day - I left work a couple of hours early to finish Christmas preparations, and I'm now fully presented. I've even been chilled enough to have some supper, take a long soak in the bath, and write a load of cards. It's all startlingly mellow compared to my usual pre-festive season chaos.
In honour/memory of Mary Hansen's death last week, I've been listening to some Stereolab the while, and am currently annoying the neighbours by keeping Wow And Flutter on a repeating loop.
Nights Out
I've been for my fourth night out in the West End in a couple of months, which is more than I achieved in the entire first ten months of the year. Caught up with Andrea, a friend from school, and managed once again to find a pleasant place to eat and drink that wasn't too crowded in the heart of Soho - clearly the end of the world is upon us.
One of these days I'm going to try and identify what it was that triggered the shift from the multiple nights out a week person I used to be to the one who'd rather stay at home most nights and occasionally venture to the cinema or to friends' for dinner. I sincerely hope it's not just getting older....
Anyway, as previously noted, this is going to be quite a busy week, and given my general lack of sleep over the weekend, I'm already knackered, and it's only Monday. This can't bode well.
Fellow Travellers
Having finally done some catch-up blog-reading, I found Gert's posting; 'Ethical Tourism' resonant enough with some recent thoughts and discussions I've been having to warrant a posting of my own.
Longer-standing readers will know that a little over a year ago, I refused to go on holiday to Egypt for reasons associated with the very policies which led Gert to raise the topic. The Egyptian government had arrested and charged 50-plus gay men under state security laws which prevented them from access to lawyers or much in the way of legal defence at all, basically for being gay. "I don't want to visit such a country", I said, and Alison and Philippa went without me (or Chris, who had the same problem with it as I did). Oh how self-sacrificing, how noble, how unfliching in his dedication to what he believes in - I know that's what you're all thinking. Yeah right.
The reason this has been something of a topic recently is that Chris and I have several thousand air miles that we accumulated during the years of our relationship. We keep meaning to plan a trip to use them up, and have been thinking about doing something early next year to get away from gloomy old Britain in winter. But where to go? A return trip to San Francisco was a possibility - we'd both loved it last time, and know good places to stay at a reasonable price. Or the Caribbean perhaps; some sunshine would no doubt be a welcome change. Or.....
The difficulty is that once one stakes a claim on the moral high ground over Egypt, there are all sorts of landmines lurking underfoot. Can one really support a regime which employs the death penalty, for instance? If not, then the USA (or at least most of the States in it) is out, as is pretty much all of the Caribbean bar Haiti and the Domincan Republic. And what about countries where homosexuality is illegal? That also wipes out quite a lot of the Caribbean, and any number of other countries. Interestingly, it doesn't wipe out Egypt, which actually doesn't have any regular laws on the subject on its statute books - I checked before I even thought about going there.
As Gert notes, the whole subject is riven with difficulties, from the most basic principles - all tourism is inherently unethical; its impact on the environment is inevitable. And the assumption that one's own definitions of right and wrong are somehow more valid than those of others is no more nor less than cultural imperialism.
Once upon a time, I would have been far more black-and-white about the whole thing (and any number of other things), but I'm older now, and more pragmatic. In the end , one has to draw one's own lines - in this area as in all others. Source your purchases as carefully as you feel is necessary, decide what you will be comfortable to demonstrate approval or support for in terms of national policies, and never lose sight of the fact that someone else's comfort zone, though different from your own, is at least as valid as your own.
This is a bit unfocused, but I think I'm going to try and put something a little more structured together in the near future.
'Nuff for now. More reading to catch up on.
An Actual Weekend Off (Mostly)
Well, for a change, I'm not doing much in the way of work this weekend - just a few emails that I'll need to get caught up on tomorrow. Had a very pleasant evening last night, when my old friend Alex came over - I think she's the first completely new visitor to the flat in over a year - always good to get caught up.
I've been having a quiet one today, heading out shortly to do some shopping and go to Chris's for dinner.
Tomorrow, I absolutely promise that I'll get caught up on all the various blogs I haven't had time for this last week or so.
Classic!
Courtesy of Metafilter, I've found the UK's various Entrances To Hell, and love it. You see, this is what the interwebnet is really for.
In other news, there really isn't any other news. Christmas is looming, and despite a usual tendency for things to slow down at this time, we're keeping busy at work. We've basically finished two projects today alone, and have another couple to wrap up before the Christmas break. I'm not, as I'm sure you can imagine, complaining.
I'm almost Christmas presented, though apart from my transatlatic ones, I haven't started on cards yet. Christmas this year is going to be spent in Scotland again, at my brother's. I'm hoping to do a great deal of bugger-all while I'm there.
Otherwise, next week looks pretty hectic, catching up with people seasonally, The Two Towers, and the work Christmas do...I feel knackered already.
“Cheriegate”? Oh Please.
I actually saw this whole pathetic situation with Cherie Blair referred to as 'Cheriegate' in a paper this morning, which for sheer journalistic stupidity I'll come to in a minute.
But in the meantime, the woman hasn't actually done anything wrong. If dealing with somone who has a criminal record is a problem then 1) it makes a mockery of the whole idea that the justice system is about rehabilitation, and 2), the royal family had better make sure none of them are seen hanging around with Princess Anne. Fine, if Downing Street acted inappropriately in dealing with the situation (possibly by dealing with it as a situation, rather than the non-event it actually is), then explore that, but don't make this transparent attempt to attack the government by hounding and prying into the affairs of a woman who isn't even part of it.
And as for this 'Cheriegate' thing....
Dear Journalists,
Did no one ever teach you at journalism school that snappy soundbites will only ever work if they actually make sense? This desperate attempt to categorise every single scandal of any description as a '-gate' quite straightforwardly doesn't. Think back to the case that should be emblazoned on the hearts and minds of every journalist worthy of the title. Watergate was called Watergate because it's the name of an hotel that figured in the events of the story. Richard Nixon hadn't been discovered in some shifty dealings over water, you morons. As a model for labelling, it's ridiculous. 'Irangate', 'Contragate' and all of the other '-gates' that have come along since only serve to demonstrate the lazy, shiftless nature of modern journalism, and the lack of any real historical perspective on the events you're now reporting.
Just thought I'd mention it.
Best,
Me
Outrageous
So former ITV Digital suppliers are supposed to return their set-top boxes or pay £40 for the privilege of keeping them....
How does that balance out for the people who paid £150 or whatever it was for a year's service and then got about two or three months out of them, I wonder?
Let me guess - it doesn't, because god forbid the actual customers should get a rebate for a loss of service that wasn't their fault.*
*It was the fault of the insanely greedy professional football system, coupled with the insanely stupid ITV Digital executives who tried to pander to them, by the way.
Listing Badly
I think it's possibly a side-effect of my being so focused on documents and organising content lately, but I've become quite list-fixated in the last week or so. In idle moment I find myself compiling mental lists of all sorts of odd things: names I've occasionally entertained applying to my children, in the unlikely event I have any; addresses I've lived at; people I've slept with; books I know I've bought but no longer seem able to find; videos, ditto; TV programmes I used to enjoy as a kid; all sorts of odd stuff.
The thing that an exercise like this occasionally throws up is unexpected bits of self-knowledge. Like for instance, when I started on the 'names of my children' list, I realised that it's actually quite long, which suggests that I've spent quite a bit of time over the years pondering a subject that for all practical purposes is entirely useless to me.
File Under “Now I’ve Seen Everything”….
....and sort-of wish I hadn't.
The Men Underwater Reference Guide - a guide to scenes of men, well, under water, basically, in films and videos.
[Via Metafilter]
I’d Like To Propose
I'm in proposal hell. I've got four of varying degrees of complexity that need to be done by Wednesday, one of which I've been working on progressively for over a week. Hence the general lack of updates here. Still, if they all come in, we'll certainly be even busier in the new year than we are now, and that can't possibly be a bad thing.
I allowed myself a break this evening to go and see Die Another Day with Alison - not bad, as Bond films go, and with lots of nice touches to reflect previous films for the 40th anniversary. Everyone I know who's seen it, however, has taken the piss out of one particular special effect. "You'll know which one when you see it" they all said.
They were right. I did.