My fellow Whovians, an interesting interview with Matt Smith who plays Dr Who in the latest incarnation of the character. He seems remarkably down to earth and unaffected. See what you think.
Where has the past year gone? I don't feel any older - can I demand a recount?
Had my hair cut, bought myself a birthday cake - an apple and custard turnover, which I shall have for elevenses. Watch the rugby between Wales and Australia this afternoon and go and see my daughter and my ex tomorrow.
Sorry folks - just run out of time to post this tonight. Got home late, been distracted by various things including a friend phoning at 11.00pm. Will try to make sure I do one tomorrow. Bonzi is nodding.
I've been re-reading this series and wondered if there'd be any interest in me doing another episode. The reason I haven't for a long time is that I find it harder to write than my other series, in places it's a bit intense emotionally.
Anyway, if there's enough interest I'll think about writing some more.
A link via the Daily Wail of a dormouse who seems to have gone into torpor or early hibernation in a nest box. I don't believe it's hibernating, they usually do so in nests in the ground, it's far too vulnerable in a nestbox, so I hope they removed it to a safe place.
Anyway the clip is fun although the camera didn't appear to get the sound.
I've just sent the latest chapter of this version of the saga to Maddy, who will doubtless post it in the next week or so. I'm intending to wrap this book up in the next few chapters hopefully resolving the Meadows question as I go along, otherwise we could end up with a four book trilogy - duh!
You might have seen the photo that Jodi Bieber took of Bibi Aisha, if not then do look at the one in the link below. Bibi is an Afghan girl who left her husband and he followed her and cut off her nose and ears. It sounds barbaric, which it is, but the photo conveys a woman who has an inner serenity despite her mutilation.
She now lives in NY city, so possibly might have some sort of plastic surgery eventually. If we tend to feel dissatisfaction with our physical appearance, imagine what she goes through every time she looks in a mirror.
I’m sitting here in my dining room, which serves as a study cum computer room and library–I use the latter term loosely, I have books all over my house, but the dining room has a few more than the others, about a thousand more but that’s not the subject of this piece.
The idea for this arose as I was dressing this morning and is one that has occurred to me many times. It’s simply this, that much of the time the sort of things I wear are not that dissimilar to the things I wore many years ago, ie before transitioning.
I watched this against my better judgement - usually, I stay well away from cliche TV - and on the whole was pleasantly surprised. There were still cliches, Drew takes two and half hours each day to apply her makeup, and sadly looks like she should either be on the catwalk or stage - it's OTT big time. Presumably a case of overcompensation, sadly because both she and Donna - who is all tattoos and piercings could make quite attractive females in a more conventional way. All the new women had rather male voices which also shattered the illusion they were trying to create.
Killing Billie off in Bike is the hardest thing I've had to do and it's left me feeling like I've had a real bereavement, I've been flat and depressed since - so why did I do it?
At times I've allowed the fantasy stuff take us away from the realities of life. Cathy's had to deal with all sorts of low-lifes and some quite absurd incidents too. At times the story has been humorous, verging on comedic; at others it's been more like a thriller and just to let you get your breath back I slip in a couple of domestic bliss storylines.
I saw this article in today's Guardian, which has possible implications for scientists understanding and ultimately treating Alzheimers.
It has absolutely nothing to do with transgenderism but does have an amazing picture of a fluorescent micrograph of a mouse's hippocampus (part of the brain).
I'll wait for PS to do the official statistics, but just doing a quick count using the cat's toes, and counting back the last six or seven episodes, Bike has reached well over 2 Million words.
My mother always told me I would use half a dozen words where one would do, perhaps she had a point.
In keeping with the title of the story, I demonstrated the ease with which I manage to fall off bikes yesterday, thankfully no serious damage was done to the bike. Oh me, just a few scratches - bike riders is tough (unfortunately not as tough as the average road!).
If things continue as they normally do, then I should post episode 1500 on around Sunday. I'm pleased to see that I still get 6-700 reads per episode, not as many as some stories or some authors, but I suspect I get as many Kudos as most, and rightly or wrongly assume my cadre of readers enjoy my output.
I assume those readers want me to continue turning out tales of Cathy and her family for a bit longer, and also that Erin is prepared to have me clogging up her servers with my ponderous, prosaic and precipitous prolixity for a persistent period.
Film following the journey and the prejudice encountered along the way of gay couple Sam and Evan as they undergo the process of changing their bodies from female to male.
BBC3 tonight at 9.00pm.
According to the Guardian, they look to move to Manchester in the hope of finding more acceptance than they get in Rochdale. I wish them luck.
This time I managed to get to the meeting point, in fact I was first. We had a good survey, found six or seven nest boxes occupied four of which had babies in. Between now and the onset of winter they need to weigh at least 15g to have a chance of surviving hibernation. I got to handle another three dormice and either I'm getting slower or they're getting wrigglier.
Amazingly, one of the group was called Cathy though she wasn't leading the survey.
My little legs and back are now aching from walking up and down a hillside through quite rough woodland.
I think it's fair to say that despite less than perfect weather, those who attended enjoyed themselves. The weather became damp, windy and finally sunny before reverting to wet again over the weekend though we neither allowed it to dampen our spirits or blow our enthusiasm away.
Something which has been buzzing round my head for a little while is what happens to us if we suffer Alzheimer's, dementia or some major head injury - would we still retain our new gender or revert back? I don't know the answer and hope never to find out personally, but hence the recent theme in Bike.
For those of you who can watch UK television repeats, this one on the Channel4 website may be interesting, as one of the ferret rescuers is a pre-op TS called Kelly. All three of the subjects seem as traumatised as the ferrets they rescue.
It doesn't take long - that's the best bit - a breast X-ray, which is just as well because it isn't the most comfortable experience I've ever had. I think this is my third or fourth time for one of these close encounters with a plastic clamp and X-ray machine, where the woman radiographer asks you to relax while the corner of the unit is poking in your armpit and a large perspex plate is squishing your boob.
A link to the BBC site, although it talks about experiments done at Berkley, one wonders if they'd do the same as the gay penguins did in raising a chick from a donated egg.
This was mentioned as a same-sex marriage but clearly it isn't as the bride is a post op transsexual who is legally female; but apparently it's a first for Cuba.
for oodles of useless descriptions of fieldwork - I'm dormousing tomorrow - simply for research purposes of course, then cycling on Sunday - more research, naturally.
I shall probably be exhausted after the weekend (if not before) but it's been a very busy week work wise, so doing something different should be good - and those little furry critters are so cute - no not cyclists, dormice - duh!
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
