Kamelot...

... are a great big heap o' fabulous.



I want to write a post about the National Identity Register and its corresponding ID cards, but so frustrated can't construct sentences WORST IDEA IN HISTORY OF UNIVERSE argh.

Pants Down Friend

A post whose component parts are entirely unrelated. Yup, I'm back from Wacken, and my face, pimply at the best of times, looks like someone has puked on it (from my living on grease and mud).

Just thought you might like to know that.

1) I'm supposed to be reading the archaeological reports on Christ Church, Spitalfields. They are quite comical* - it's one disaster after another: Active smallpox virus has been discovered! A coffin has fallen on someone's head! Someone has caught a skin disease whose variety we have been unable to ascertain!

2) I might email my department and suggest that, before next term, they send round a message detailing the differences between a compliment and sexual harrassment. I'm treated perfectly well by the Hooray Henrys in my year, because I happily don't register on their radar as "girl" - but the pretty GTA last term was decidedly *not*.

It wasn't just feminist me and the girls that were cringing at their behaviour - it was a few of the other boys, too - the ones who hadn't been educated privately, incidentally.

Now, do we see how it's a *bad* idea to shut pubescent heterosexual boys up in a building with nothing but themselves and FHM for company? Then to unleash them on a world containing real females? Boys from families so wealthy that they feel entitled to "own" whatever they wish?

3) Ladies, gentlemen, &c. I give you (as we saw at Wacken)...
Corvus Corax!



I thought they were Corpus Corax to start off with... which also translates nicely.

*Runs off to start a band called Corpus Corax*

4) I'm gonna be harsher about the new Nightwish this time. Anette Olzon appears to be the exact opposite of Tarja Turunen. Turunen had apparently no personality, and an amazing voice. Olzon takes pains to demonstrate that she has a personality...

But she's not my housemate, my girlfriend or even an acquaintance. She's the lead vocalist in a famous band - incidentally, a band whose older music requires A SOPRANO. Someone who can hit high notes, at least approximately. Not a special new definition of "soprano", meaning "someone I would quite like to boink" - looking at YOU, mister keyboard-face.

If they weren't going to have one, if any vocal range would do, they might as well have given Blaize Bailey some employment.

5) To *sort of* tie together my comments about continental Europeans putting us to shame, and sexual harrassment (in this case, a lack of), I present to you: the most adorable proposition ever made to anyone, EVER.

Man: Vould you be interested in being my pants-down friend?

David: No.

Man (with expression of bitter disappointment): Oh.

Man (wanders off in another direction, waves): Vish me luck!

If you don't acquiesce to that, you must have a heart of stone.



I might do a SRS POST OF SRSNZ later. OK, I'll do a baby trans one now, as people seem to be actually interested in my haphazard Trans 101.

1) You can be as nosy as you generally are about the identity and history of a trans person that you know and like (no, not a random one off the street). Ask all the questions you like - as long as you make sure that person understands that their answers will not alter your perception of their identity. The average woman wouldn't mind telling you that she had a ginger beard once, if she really knew that your only, brief, thought on the matter was "That's Susan. She used to have a long ginger beard".

2) However, don't talk loudly about a trans person's trans "issues" in public. Talk about trans stuff, yes, sing a song about it if you like, but don't suggest that it's connected at all to your acquaintance. If you are talking about hir own trans stuff, keep your voice very low.

This is simply a safety issue. If you were sitting in a "white" bus during any apartheid, you wouldn't say to your companion "Well GOSH! Shall we talk about how you're hiding your BLACK SKIN?"

(n.b. the analogy doesn't work in any other way - it's just a point about personal safety).


*Maybe my definition of "comical" differs from yours, then.

Journeys - and a solution to all the world's problems

I'm a bit on edge at the moment. This is because I'm trying to reconcile one of my greatest loves and one of my greatest hatreds.

This isn't going to be a particularly profound post. My love is for music festivals, my loathing for travelling. To get to Wacken Open Air next week, we have to travel on several different modes of transport - and if we miss the plane, or it's cancelled, we miss the festival.

I HATE travelling. By car, around the UK, it's fun, as there are very few surprises (well, there's the price of petrol I suppose, with which one can familiarise oneself if one needs a heart attack).

I HATE the uncertainty. I would love it if all public transport came at the allocated time and left at the allocated time - if nothing was ever, ever late or cancelled. My thoughts would be of future frolics at my destination, and I'd have time to read a few books.

Remember in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - specifically, the passage in which the protagonist has to have timetables made for every minute of every day, so he doesn't panic? That was one of the best descriptions in there.

Actually, I've said before that I can't cope with untruthful statements, unless I understand their value as a story or as a white lie. "8.30" on a bus timetable is NOT a white lie, if the bus comes at 8.52. It's an ordinary, stinkin' lie.

I'm impressively good at hiding my OCD and autism - until I have to go on a journey.

"Panic" isn't the word, because neurotypical people have panic attacks. The feeling is, physically, (according to people who've had heart attacks) exactly like a heart attack, but with a kind of mental freeze - it's impossible to think, and to speak in logical sentences.

Again, as depicted in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, some goon always tries to cuddle me or put a calming arm around my shoulders at that point. Those people are lucky that I'm not particularly strong.

Take this as a health and safety tip - don't try it.

I've actually forgotten what this post was supposed to be about.
I'll just concentrate on how head-asplodingly awesome some of the bands are.

Or I suppose I could talk about the Great Nightwish Controversy. Now, Nightwish wrote *our song* so don't worry, this is written with plenty of metallic emotional investment.

Yes, I realise we are both more butch than the song, but "Beer Beer" just *cannot* fill the same slot in one's life.

I saw the new Nightwish line-up in April. The couple I was with think that Annette Olson EATS RAW BABIES AND SUCKS DONKEY COCK (not that the two acts are comparable, the characters in Clerks II seemed to appreciate the latter).

I agree that she's a sub-standard singer, considering the quality of the other female metal vocalists about, and I'm assuming she aced the auditions because she's shagging one of the other band members.

And I'm glad I saw Nightwish's last performance with Tarja Turunen.

However, the vocals didn't depress me as much as they *angered* the other two (a note to some guys in the crowd - yes, these ladies are attractive Goth lesbians, no, they wouldn't be any use in your sex life if, indeed, you had one, please take your ungentlemanly remarks elsewhere).

This is because I think that Nightwish should be a karaoke opportunity! The rest of the band should come on and play, while everyone in the crowd strives for those high notes. If the vocals aren't (anything like) as good as Turunen's - try and sing over them.

Good stuff

Look, I've got free time this afternoon and no more free time EVAR.

My partner has bought me a remote-controlled toy car.

We're having an EPIC MARATHON SESSION (of Dungeons and Dragons, of course, what else?) this weekend. If you think that sounds nerdy, guess what tattoo I'm getting come September? I've got an archaeological half sleeve already.

We're going to Wacken Open Air, on that mythical pilgrimage in the land where beer comes in litres.

I'm naked on Youtube (not linking it, use your nous from my links).

I'm going to have a male name soon.

An actor I know, David Toole, popped up in a film I just watched (Amazing Grace, with an unreasonably sexy portrayal of William Wilberforce).

This is an extremely good song.


That is all.