Speaking Of The Rings
They're now in our possession. Two platinum, court shape, mirror finish wedding rings. Fairly traditional in style, though the platinum makes them a bit less so I suppose. I wasn't expecting them to be finished until some time this coming week, so I'm glad that I can stop stressing that they wouldn't be ready in time.
Note that references to the arrangements are only going to increase between now and the 14th.
It’s Large. It’s Blue. And It’s Back!
The Large Blue Butterfly became extinct in Britain in 1979, but thanks to a diligent effort by the charity Butterfly Conservation, it's been reintroduced to five locations and from those has already started spreading to others. This is remarkable enough simply as an effort by the dedicated conservationists. But it's more remarkable still when you consider the specific needs of the species.
To start with, it lays its eggs only on wild thyme flowers, and once they hatch, the grubs are dependent on one specific species of red ant out of the five native to Britain to take them into their nests and provide them with sustenance while they grow. (Yes, they eat the red ant grubs in the nest - I never said this was pretty.) And those ants in turn will only thrive where the grass is of a particular length, which is partly why the butterflies became extinct in the first place, as farming and grazing patterns changed.
I think this is all very cool. And I wanted to post some good news in the middle of all the political bollocks that's clogging up the news at the moment.
Religious Issues
My general antagonism towards most if not all things religious has been mentioned here before, but every now and then I do find myself having to concede that if it weren't for religion, the world would be a far less entertaining place. If it's not the Pope (infallible unless I'm much mistaken) screwing up relations with one of the world's other major religions, it's stories like the one about this loon, who thought he could get away with ordaining married men as bishops. Read his story - you couldn't make it up.
All In the Terminology
Something that's been niggling away in the back of my mind suddenly crystalised into a simple realisation when I was reading My Beloved's latest comment on his own blog. I've been trying to work out what it is in everyday conversations that's felt off, and now i know.
It's that at some point, without consciously choosing to do it, we started referring to the event that will be happening in a little under three weeks as 'the wedding', and to concepts such as the wedding rings and the wedding outfits in the same way. And I'm a bit pissed off with myself for that.
I took a very hard line in the early days - we're not getting married, because we're not legally allowed to get married, so I shall stand my ground and not refer to it as a wedding. A lot of the decisions around the trappings of the day were predicated upon this fact. We don't have to have a ceremony, so we won't. We don't have to have a formal 'reception', so we won't. We'll have a Civil Partnership party and that'll be the end of it.
But it's just easier to say 'wedding'. People know what you mean. It makes organising things easier if you say to people "It's for a wedding" when you ask about things. It makes them ten times more expensive too, but that's just the way of the world. Everyone else says 'wedding' anyway, (except Registrars, who've clearly had it impressed upon them that they never ever should) so beyond a certain point you just feel like you're fighting the tide.
And if I'm completely honest, I don't think of them as Civil Partnership Rings. And I don't think of it as getting Civilly Partnered. I think of them as Wedding Rings. And in my head we're getting Married.
But I do feel weak for giving in 
Hero Or Zero
In our household we're currently much enjoying every one of those Pepsi Max ads that they're running on billboards all over the city at the moment - and I do mean all over; the things are everywhere. In case you haven't seen them, they're anti-Coke Zero messages, showing a scale from Zero to Max with various images or concepts at either end of the scale to illustrate the point (like a ballet shoe at Zero and a hot red stiletto at Max, or simply dictionary definitions of the two words). The point is obviously to show the world of difference that's between something which describes itself as Zero and something which describes itself as Max.
We can't believe that no one at Coke saw that as a possibility when they launched Coke Zero.
I *Heart* Virgin
Or maybe it's Richard Branson I *heart*. Or maybe it's both.
I fly Virgin Atlantic a good few times a year, and actually, I do like to do so. Far more than with British Airways, their chief competitor on the Virgin routes I fly, whose service is a shoddy and rather depressing shadow of its former self. Virgin staff make you feel like they enjoy what they're doing, and that they're happy to stop and actually engage with you, which is more than can be said for most of the misreable gits who populate most BA flights I take.
Anyway, to further compound the joy of flying them, the horrible guilt that I feel whenever I step on a plane (which I've mentioned in the past) can now at least be mildly assuaged by the news that the profits my fare generates will be going to find ways to reduce the impact of the flight itself on the environment.
Dear British Airways, American Airlines, United, QANTAS, et al,
Your turn.
Catered
Well, not quite. But we do have final menu choices to select from, and we've settled on things like arrival drinks. We've discussed decorations, and Paul the DJ has checked out the music facilities. plus we've given him some rather contradictory advice about what we'd like to play. And we were fitted for, well let's just call them 'our items' on Wednesday evening, so we seem finally to be on something approaching track for the big day.
The Uncertainty Principle
At one point I was going to be in another country for the day today. If I had been, then the meeting we had scheduled for this evening with the person who's working on our outfits for the wedding party would have been a David only affair, which would be annoying, as it was a first fitting. But as it transpires, I'm in this country and so was able to go and be fitted.
In theory I might be in another country tomorrow (yes, it's 9pm the night before and I still don't know if I'm supposed to be on a plane at the crack of dawn tomorrow), though that's looking unlikely. If I am away tomorrow then the meeting we have at the party venue to finalise catering, etc tomorrow evening will have to be postponed, which will be a bugger with so little time left before the do.
You can probably tell I'm really enjoying living with uncertainty.
The Downside Of Commuting By Car…
.... is that you don't get to read over people's shoulders.
And sometimes that can be quite er, distracting.
Spooked
I've never, ever, been able to get as enthused about the BBC series Spooks (or MI5 if you're in the USA) as some people, and it turns out David has the same problem. But in an effort to understand what various people we know do see in it, we watched (the second part of) the new series opener, wondering if the scales would be lifted from our eyes.
They weren't, as it happens, though I at least can sort of see what it might do for some people. But it just didn't grip us. I was at least willing to engage a little bit with the plot, which David wasn't able to, though I think he was shocked by my statement that I found some of it worryingly believeable. But I do. Not all the bits that were bolted on to the core concept in the interests of 'drama' (the Russian mafia connection and the handy way that all the evidence of it was available as the return of a favour, Hermione Norris's character conveniently being the daughter of one of the plotters *and* getting her hands on the incriminating disk ahead of both MI5 and the conspirators, and all that nonsense about the Prime Minister's son), naturally. That was all far too much for credibility.
But the idea that people in power would create a false threat to national security in order to introduce repressive measures and secure their own authority without challenge? God yes. Who wouldn't believe most of the buggers capable of that?