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Thursday 20 November 2008
Quiz Of The Year
Well, feel free to answer in the comments if you feel like, or alternatively, just review some events of the year as viewed through the me-filter. Twenty-four questions, two per month, and everything is related to something I've linked to here - it's a mix of serious and not-so. Happy New Year everyone.
January:
Why would Hattie Jacques have been proud?
Which two 1980s pop stars had a bad week?
February:
What was the part-time occupation of the recently-deceased Princess Margaret?
Why was a single stone so decisive?
March:
Which organisation endorsed the concept of an independent Palestinian state for the first time?
Who 'exclusively revealed' that everyone had always known he was gay?
April:
How did Microsoft shoot themselves in the foot?
Which TV show did Christopher Price present before his death?
May:
Which Middle-Eastern city had its first ever gay pride event?
What type of sports club did Ann Winterton MP offend with the racist joke that got her sacked?
June:
What kind of people did GWB ask the President of Brazil if he had in his country?
What did the UK government try to increase the scope of, leading to a rousing demonstration of people power in opposition?
July:
What did the Guardian try to establish a new British standard for?
Who came fourth in Big Brother?
August:
Which city was flooded, resulting in the washing out of filming on The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen?
What generated 'unprecedented levels of complaint' on television?
September:
Which US state held trials for two different sets of defendants, each of which was separately accused of the same crime?
Which TV series won the Best Drama award at the Emmys for the third successive year (hint - one of its stars won best actress for the third year in a row too)?
October:
Which organisation recognises that no country can be entirely safe for all people at all times, in relation to the need for refugee and asylum status?
Up to 50% of which group had experienced gay activity, according to 1960s papers released this month?
November:
Who needed to 'unite or die'?
What may have been illegal under the Autopsy Act?
December:
What wasn't remotely like Watergate?
And who wanted their boxes back?
Listing V
Five films my life would have been poorer for not seeing:
Casablanca
Beautiful Thing
Moulin Rouge!
The Lavender Hill Mob
Some Like It Hot
Listing IV
TV that suggest it's a medium worth having after all:
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
The West Wing
ER
Any of Mark Thomas's series
Quality factual stuff
TV that suggests that its producers should be made to watch endless reruns of their own stuff:
Anything with the words Celebrity, Fit, or Fat in its title.
Anything suffixed by the words From Hell.
Anything in which the audience at home decides between contestants.
Footballers' Wives
Listing III
Five Book Series I read as a kid:
The Famous Five (inevitably)
The Hobbit/he Lord of the Rings/The Silmarillion/etc
The Lone Pine series, by Malcolm Saville (does anyone else even remember these?)
Doctor Who novelisations
The Earthsea series
Listing II
Top Ten Current American Comics (in no order, and obviously, of those I've sampled - though I do sample a great many.)
New X-Men (Marvel)
Lucifer (DC/Vertigo)
Ruse (CrossGen)
Alias (Marvel/Max)
Fables (DC/Vertigo)
Y - The Last Man (DC/Vertigo)
Queen and Country (Oni Press)
The Ultimates (Marvel)
The Legion (DC)
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (DC/America's Best Comics)
Honourable mention should go to Planetary, which could be regarded as current in that it's half-finished, but as there's still no sign of a new issue being scheduled, it seems a bit inappropriate to include it.
Anybody want to suggest any I've missed?
Listing I
Top Ten Buffy Episodes (just my opinion of course, and in no particular order):
Hush
The Body
Restless
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
Once More, With Feeling
Doppelgangland
Earshot
Fool For Love
Band Candy
This Year's Girl/Who Are You? (I'm counting this as one, as it's the most coherent of the Buffy two-parters.)
And to go with: Best Buffy writers (in order this time):
Joss Whedon
Jane Espenson
Douglas Petrie
What are the alternative views out there?
Restful And Listed
Nice day yesterday - Chris's sister and brother-in-law came up for the day and we wandered around the ecology park near his place, then into Greenwich, for a troll round the market. I really like Greenwich - it gets a bit manically touristy over summer weekends, but the rest of the time it's well worth a visit.
As it's the end of the year, and the press has already started doing its 'best of' lists, I thought I'd join in, but I'm not going to do 2002 lists, as there'll be a million of 'em around. I'm going to do a few more general lists of things I'm interested in. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I've become very list-making lately, so I may as well share a few with the world. I also thought I'd do something to mark the end of the year properly, but I haven't quite decided what yet. Watch this space.
Home Is Where The Cat Is
Well, sort-of. She's actually in residence at Chris's at the moment, but at least I'm back in the same city.
Well all of my best-laid plans to be a frequent updater while I was away were somewhat thwarted by the connection at my brother's being in his bedroom, meaning that all the times when I would have liked to have been online (early in the morning and late at night) unfortunately coincided with those times when he was most inconsiderately asleep.
Oh well, I am returned. Good break, though as previously mentioned, the dog was a bit of a trial at 6am - and much of the rest of the day, though she's also very sweet. Flights were fine both ways, and generally my plan to have a few days of doing very little paid off. I did a lot of cooking, but that was part of my plan, and it's strangely relaxing, anyway. A fairly traditional festive meal was had, with some fairly traditional festive drinks (which makes it sound like an eggnog-fest, and that it certainly wasn't). I spent a chunk of time playing on Andy's X-Box, even having a go at the football game I bought him, believe it or not. And can I just say that Splinter Cell is practically a reason to buy one of the things by itself?
I didn't think about work very much, which was handy, and now I'm back for the weekend, with some more catching up to do with people, and a second Christmas for local presents :-) (Suppose I should do some wrapping....)
I hope everyone had some kind of a break, and that the kind was good. I'll start catching up properly later.
Happy Holidays!!!!
Yes, it's that day again - but whether you celebrate this one, another one, or the great god of just an extra couple of days off, I hope it's a good one for you.
UPDATE - wrote this on Wednesday, forgot to shift status from 'Draft' to 'Publish', so it never went live - oh well, better late than never.....
Bonny Scotland
Well, here I am in the not-so-frozen North, British Airways having managed to deliver me here on schedule yesterday. The family are all well, and Andy's new dog is quite the daftest animal I've ever come across. She's come from the pound, and having been rescued by him, she just never wants to leave his side. Though I appear to be a bit of a hit with her myself, having been honoured with her sleeping on my bed most of the night.
More later.
Pre-Departure Linkage
Right, I'm sorted and ready to go - I'll be posting over the next few days, so just to keep my hand in, a couple of links from my Favourites folder that I've been meaning to post for a while:
In Passing... is a log of overheard comments from the author's everyday life.
one word is a little linguistic challenge. Click the button and reveal a word. You then have sixty seconds to write whatever seems most appropriate to you in connection with that one word. Genius.
For anyone who won't be online over the festive season, hope you have a great one - rest, relax, and be refreshed, whatever you celebrate (and if you don't celebrate anything, have a great break anyway).
The Break Starts Here
Well, this is the first day of my seasonal break - though I daresay I'll be doing some work on and off.
The company festive do was last night - we went bowling and then for food and drink, and everyone seems to have had a good time. There was a bit of a consensus that more bowling should be done, so we'll have to work on that for the new year.
Tonight Barnaby's organised a get-together that I'm heading off to, then tomorrow Alison's having a pre-Christmas lunch at hers, so it should be a good weekend all told - I'm even quite organised for heading up to Scotland on Monday already.
Rebuilt
Well, Dave has finished working his magic, and my machine is now itself again, only hopefully better. Unfortunately, something's gone awry with the import of my old ICQ data into Trillian, which Dave decided to try me on, so if you were on my contact list, please send me a message, and I'll add you again.
Mac Unlimited
As my own machine is currently undergoing a pre-Christmas rebuild, I'm temporarily working on the office Mac, getting used to OS X, and remembering the good times - it's been an age since I did any solid body of work on one of these things. There's a lot to be said for them, though getting used to a single-button, no-wheel mouse is actually proving to be surprisingly tricky.
Round-Up
Soundtrack - Once More, With Feeling cast album
I've been doing holiday greetings cards this evening, and have just about managed to get them all done. The number that I send seems to go down each year, which seems rather odd to me....
I note that the Golden Globe nominations are out - not many surprises, though not having seen Chicago (the film), I can't comment whether it deserves all of the attention. Films I am looking forward to seeing when they come out over here that get mentions: The Quiet American, The Hours, and Far From Heaven. The more I see the trailer for Gangs of New York the less I want to see the film, I'm afraid.
And Chris pointed out that today is the 70th anniversary of the BBC's World Service - which was marked by a fourteen-hour broadcast from Table Mountain. I know the WS has its critics, but I think its good outweighs its bad. I *never* get to listen to it though - must try harder.
Company Christmas do tomorrow night - and then I'm done 'til after Christmas. Which might actually mean I have some time to get this place up to date and caught up on some linking, reading, and even the long-promised redesign....
Mad
The traffic lights outside the tube station near work have been out of action since some time on Monday afternoon. It's a major, busy, four-way junction, with two pedestrian crossing periods built into its phasing, and it's been out of action for days. How can it not have been fixed yet?
The chaos that has been going on there all week is astonishing. It makes me long for the common-sense approach of the North American Four-Way-Stop, which by any rational standard simply shouldn't work, but contrary to all expectations about human nature, does. Perhaps the rules should be changed to require four-way-stop procedures to be the fallback when traffic lights fail....
Lord Alive....
....but that was amazing. The Two Towers, that is.
My local cinema was a complete scrum - they'd sold out of all four later screenings by the time we went to settle down for the 7pm, and I've never seen the largest of their screens full before. Three hours later, we emerged exhausted into the night. Trust me when I say that you've absolutely never seen anything like this. Go and see it.
I've put a review of it up in Opinion, which prompts me to mention that I've posted up four new items in that section in the last few days, in a desperate attempt to get back on track.
Now I'm going to have a nice cup of tea and something to eat, and think about going to see it again....
Today's The Day
Well, if I'd been counting down, we'd just have hit zero - today's The Two Towers day. 7pm screening, here we come.
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.
Odds And Ends
Annoying: Despite Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal having previously been slated for release in the UK this coming Friday, suddenly, it's not on the IMDB's upcoming releases page at all any longer. What on earth is going on here?
Sad: Glenn Quinn, who played the half-demon Doyle in the first few episodes of Angel has died, at the age of 32 (cause unspecified thus far). Which makes me, at 37, stop and think.
Sadder: Since the first day of this month, thirty people have arrived here having searched for some variation on 'Sue Perkins and Rhona Cameron gay lesbian'. In six days. For goodness' sake.
Stunning: It's been an interesting few weeks in gay news, after the adoption law change, suddenly, we're apparently going to be able to register civil partnerships. Who saw that one coming? Equitable treatment for people sharing their lives together is a real step towards equality. I'm not one of those who clamours for the right to marry, because I have no time for any religious observance whatsoever, and anyway, why should we want to ape heterosexual conventions anyway? But equal treatment legally, that I'll celebrate.
Joyful: Internet spammer can't take what he dishes out
[Via Sore Eyes]
Excellent: Sky have announced start dates for their screenings of Buffy season seven and Angel season four. They're January 9th and 23rd respectively. Enterprise is back on January 6th, by the way, if that's more your thing.
Christmas Is Coming
I'm just in from my first seasonal event of the, er, season. I've been having an evening with most of the gang who used to be neighbours in Lewisham, back in the day. Lovely food (in large portions), very nice company, and a general sense that the year is starting to wind down were all part of the evening's feeling, for me at any rate. Which is nice, considering that in work terms, the year seems to be doing exactly the opposite of winding down. Oh well, here comes the weekend.
The Tying Of Ties
I had a meeting with a prospective client today for which I decided to wear a tie - mostly I don't bother these days. As I was putting the thing on, I had this weird flashback/thought that the way I tie ties isn't 'right'. I was taught how to tie a tie in junior school ("by a bunch of women - what do they know about tying ties?" as my stepfather was wont to ask). And I still use the same method, even though various people, including my exasperated, armed-forces brother, have attempted to teach me 'proper' knots, like the half-Windsor, is it? I learn, I use, for a while, then I don't wear a tie for a bit, and the next time I do, instinct takes over, and I'm tying it the way I was taught in school again.
What The Night Is For....Finally
Well, having had to postpone a couple of weeks ago, I finally got to see What The Night Is For, and generally, I was impressed. It's been remarked in reviews that Gillian Anderson and Roger Allam don't have the greatest chemistry, and that's true, but you can almost let them away with it, as both of their characters spend so much time holding parts of themselves in check that it almost makes sense. There's a lot of humour in it, though it's wry, character humour, not broad and physical, and they both handle it well. There's a sense of impossibility to their situation that isn't resolved by the end, and there's a real sense that there is no resolution available to them that will make them happy. It's not perfect, but what is? BBC Newsnight Review
A Day Of Wonders....
Bank in 'helpful employee' shock!
As I was visiting a client over in Canary Wharf yesterday, and needed to go to the bank, I went to the branch over there instead of my usual local one - and what a revelation! Instead of the usual procession of miseries who process my transactions up the road from the office, I was greeted by a very cheerful bloke, who asked about the book I was carrying, chatted about reading on the tube, and generally acted like he was, well, happy to be of help. As I was finishing up, he asked; "Is there anything else I can do for you today?" I was tempted to reply "Well, you could transfer to my local branch - would that be too much trouble?"
West End Restaurant in 'tables available' shock!
I went out last night to catch up with a friend, and due to a last-minute change of plans, instead of meeting away from central London, we had to brave it. Imagine my surprise when I got to the restaurant we'd agreed to, to discover not the scrum for tables I was expecting, but lots of room, yet another friendly greeting, and helpful service throughout the evening. In the middle of Soho. Three weeks before Christmas.
Do-It-To-Someone-Else
Stopping by the shop near the office at lunchtime, the man in front of me at the till was buying a magazine called 'Tongue and Groove', which I can safely say wasn't a DIY periodical :-)
'Reality'
Did anyone else see that thing on Channel 4 last night, The Great Reality TV Swindle? Essentially, for those who missed it, thirty people were inveigled into giving up their homes and jobs in order to take part in a 'reality TV' series that would be filmed over a year. They were told they'd have accommodation and day-to-day expenses provided, and that at the end of the year they were in with a chance of a £100,000 prize. The selected participants were told to meet in three teams at three locations around London, taking no money with them, one day in June 2002 when the nature of their challenge would be revealed.
"The nature of the challenge is to make £1,000,000 in a year." Cue stunned silence from pretty well all concerned. "And the first part of your challenge is to find free accommodation for your team for the first week." Cue something involving words that my delicate ears were not meant to hear.
It turned out, inevitably, that the man 'producing' this TV series was actually doing nothing of the sort, was basically full of shit, had blagged all of them through an audition process and a load of apparently authentic contracts, and, to use a rather old-fashioned sounding term, was a con artist.
As a news item, it was interesting, as a piece of TV, I thought it was rather hollow. Most of the participants seemed to want to use this supposed series as a boost to prospective careers in entertainment (and had responded to an ad in The Stage, so that tells you something), while all seemed almost unbelievably naïve. Who, these days, when getting information from a company (and especially one you don't know terribly well, which is encouraging you to give up every bit of security you have), wouldn't check out the domain attached to the sender's email address? So did 'Nick Russian' have a completely ficticious company's website set up? How detailed and extensive was his deception? (Or call it fraud, which is what it seems to amount to.) Even after one team had decamped to the flat of one of their friends, who, it turned out (in a huge and *very* weird coincidence), worked with Nick Russian at Waterstones bookshop, they were explaining it away to themselves because "the production company might not have a lot of money"....
Sadly, the answers all lie in this inexplicable "want to get on TV" drive that some people seem to have engaged in. One of the women said that she was taken in by the audition process because "it was just like a couple of Big Brother auditions I'd been to". Desperate for attention, or what? One of the teams, even after the deception had been revealed to them, decided to try and get some mileage out of the footage they'd already shot, and called the local TV News to tell them the story. The news that the (real) TV people were going to send a crew round to film their story sent them into paroxysms of excitement that they were "going to be on TV at last!" The fact that they were going to be on TV as the mug victims of a con artist who'd played them for complete idiots apparently passed them right by.
Ultimately, after the team who made last night's programme got involved, they helped the victims track Nick down, and here again they made what I think was an error which weakened their programme - the member of the team who they took along, though probably the one most likely to say "I'm only just holding myself back from thumping you" (Good TV) was not a sufficiently strong character to create any real tension in the confrontation (Bad TV). A couple of the women who had been particularly angered by the whole experience were also much better/stronger characters, and if I'd been making it, I'd have taken one of them along.
Overall, I was rather left wondering why the programme had been made. It presented an interesting situation, but it didn't really do anything with it. At no point did I get any indication whatsoever (not even though speculation) of the man's motives in having scammed these people into giving up everything. It all ultimately felt like rather a waste of my time.
Oh The Irony!
You know my '1000th comment wins a prize' contest?
Well here's the irony - Gerard has won with his very first comment. It's on my previous posting, you know, where he completely misses the point of the idea that I'll be setting up a new site in which he can write a letter to his younger self, not write them in the comments here :-)
Anyway - I guess that means I owe him a prize....
Yet Another Potential Online Project....
....that'll probably never come to anything.
Radio 4 are currently running a series called Talking To Myself, in which authors who have written memoirs write letters to themselves at a younger age. I think this is a cool idea for regular people to do online - submit your name, a brief context to explain what was happening in your life at the time you're writing to yourself, and then the letter itself. Set some maximum word guidelines, and off you go. I think it could be very interesting. I even have a name for it, though I'm not going to give that away at this stage.
Any thoughts? Ideas? Would you be interested in contributing?
UPDATE - It suddenly occured to me that I should point out that as a concept it's been around for quite a while, and Talking To Myself is only the most recent iteration - I wouldn't want it to look like I was just copying their idea - I and they are following in the same tradition.
World AIDS Day - Linking And Thinking
As with last year, I'm going to link then think.
First of all, the BBC is continuing its sterling work in providing a centralised (and more importantly ongoing) In Depth microsite 'AIDS Around The World' Here you can find a region-by-region breakdown of infection and death rates, and archive stories on related subjects by region.
They also carry a separate focus on AIDS in Africa - 'The Orphaned Continent' bringing together case studies, statistics, news stories and analysis, and a link to a Real documentary on the subject.
The World AIDS Day site carries information on the disease, its spread in the UK and around the world, campaigns, and merchanidise you can buy to support them and raise awareness.
The National AIDS Trust are launching a new campaign in the new year focusing on HIV prejudice - set yourselves a reminder to check http://www.areyouhivprejudiced.org/ in January.
Not a resource as such, but possibly the most well-known AIDS memorial project, the AIDS Memorial Quilt is online, and worth visiting. Among the facilities on the site is a database of nearly 43,000 quilt panels images searchable by name. Why not do what I did - search on your surname, and ponder whether a distant relative has been felled by this monstrous epidemic while you view their memorial?
There are countless other resources that you *should* be checking out of course - visit a few of the other Link and Think participants and see what they're saying. (The following sites on my (shudder) 'Blogroll' specifically are taking part: Fembat, mikespace, SomeTHiNG - apologies if I've missed anyone or you were a late addition to the list.)
Additionally, I've had a rant on a related subject elsewhere - you can probably work that one out.
Thinking:
First of all, I've reviewed what I posted last year on this subject, and much of the personal reflection remains entirely valid - if you have the time, and you weren't around then, you may possibly find some of it of interest. As noted in it, you'll need to contact me for the password to part two.
Assuming nothing changes in the next four weeks, 2002 will be something of a milestone for me personally. It's been the first year in more than I can remember when I haven't heard of one single person I know, even obliquely, either being diagnosed, or moving from HIV+ to full-on AIDS, or dying. I think it's over ten years since I can be certain I last had a 'clear' year. Which makes this a good year, but also a dangerous one. Because this is where the complacency creeps in. This is where we start to think that the problem's over, and we can all breathe easy. But we can't. The people I know who are HIV+ may not have become appreciably sicker, but it's not as if they're well. And for all that combination therapies are offering astonishing stability and longevity that even ten years ago people could never have expected, it's still likely that a significant proportion of those people will indeed progress down that well-trodden road.
More broadly, it's obvious that the problem is far from over. The numbers shown in that BBC AIDS In Africa site demonstrate, with horrible clarity, that the problem is actually getting worse in many parts of the world. The need to turn our gaze outwards, and ensure that *something* is done in those places has never been more urgent. The humanitarian crisis compounded by AIDS and famine, and topped off with political disinterest, or worse, active disregard, might very well by the greatest in humanity's history. Yet to huge numbers of people around the world, it's effectively invisible. This has to change - and we can all help. Why not start by mailing the link to the BBC site to everyone in your address book?
Returning for a moment to the people I know and have known: Those people represent a tiny handful of the lives that will directly or indirectly be affected by HIV and AIDS - not only those infected but their friends, family (where they're able to tell their families), workmates, all are potentially affected by the disease. The time we all have to spend with our infected friends and family members is extremely important, because it may be so limited.
So at this point, I have to admit to guilt. Not by choice, but by circumstance, there are people I know who I haven't seen since some time in 2001. I've let an entire year go by without getting some quality time with them, which is little short (if I believed in a concept as abstract as sin) of sinful. I'm in touch with them, of course, but I haven't touched them for too long. I need to resolve that I won't let 2003 go by to the same effect.
On a personal note, my own HIV status, as far as I know it, is negative. I haven't been in a potentially infecting position since the last test I had, so certainly nothing should have changed, but there is always a vague fear at the back of my mind - what if that test was wrong? Early intervention is a critical part of successful treatment, so it's important that people who might be infected find out as quickly as possible. But at what point should one stop worrying about the subject every day? Tests are pretty reliable now, and the risk in my case wasn't that high anyway, so I should probably be thankful for my health and move on. And most of the time I've done exactly that - it's just an occasional niggle at the back of my thoughts. At no time, by the way, do I regret having been tested - it's something I think people absolutely should do if they have any concern at all.
But that's enough for me for the moment. Please do take some time to read some other Link and Think participants. I guarantee the time won't be wasted.