supported by maths, geography and plain common sense

[raven]

I have returned from Edinburgh, which was truly lovely, if endlessly wet: mostly there was bookshopping and staying in bed all day, and on a miracle of a dry and a clear night, Shim and I were a breathless cliché and went out into the fields to watch the Perseids shoot overhead. I was very sorry to come home.

That said, I have just spent a very pleasant couple of days with hathy_col and tau_sigma, who arrived on Monday afternoon in a flurry of generalised geekery. I was not doing any of the driving on this visit - as usual, I have no car to do any driving in, and Colleen's Devil Car is being devillish, so we agreed that Tali would do the driving and I would direct her. This went entirely as planned until I said, blithely, "Go left!" at a roundabout, there were shrieks of horror from the backseat and suddenly, no road.

....luckily, the tide was out. We took a brief turn on the sands and returned to the tarmac. The assembled party have agreed to never let me do anything again, up to and including leaving the house unaccompanied.

Anyway, we were actually going to see Half Blood Prince again, and I'm glad we did - every time I read about it, people are complaining about how much they disliked it. Whereas I loved it - the aesthetic, the character bits, the way the very long book has been fitted into a not-so-long film. Colleen had things to say about Remus: that the whole Remus/Tonks subplot has been reduced to one line, which rankled a bit. I agree, but mostly, I am grateful that there was any Remus to speak of; she also noted that the next film, if it includes Remus's death, will break my heart into tiny little pieces. This is not news. It is just worth reiterating. I was also sorry about the lack of Bill and Fleur, as the lack of them necessarily takes away the wonderful, wonderful moment where Molly Weasley shouts: "Not my daughter, you bitch!"

(Also, the bit where Molly and Fleur finally make peace makes me so happy. Of all the things JK Rowling has done to make me happy, her women are near the top of the list: I am doing a re-read of the novel, and so far Tonks, Fleur, Hermione, Ginny and Luna have all been wonderful. I do love these books so much after all these years.)

For some reason, after that we watched "The Mind Robber", which is a second Doctor story featuring Jamie and Zoe, and it is kind of amazingly bizarre. Jamie, incidentally, is great. As we all three jointly remarked, he does not actually wear a kilt. It's not a kilt. It's a tartan miniskirt. (For those who don't believe me: picture where it would reach if he were kneeling. Exactly.) And then fell into bed, and slept well into the following afternon. (I remember doing this sort of thing as a teenager and people trying to get me up before nine am. Dear world: thank you for not doing this any more. I really appreciate it.)

So, yesterday the three of us and the Devil Car went to Blackpool for the Doctor Who Exhbition, which is just as I remember it: gloomy, amateurish, kitsch, but with that kind of old-school charm that so many things pertaining to Doctor Who have. They have not, much to my approval, got rid of the enormous Gallifreyan headdresses; they have added David Tennant, grudgingly, to their list of Doctors past; you can still sit and watch all the Doctors die one by one on quick fast-forward; and they still have a Dalek you can sit in and menace yourself in the mirror.

Colleen did not buy a life-size cardboard cutout of John Simm; we did not get arrrested. I call this success.

Blackpool itself has not changed, either. It's still trying to reinvent itself as a kind of British Las Vegas - but I've been to Vegas and I'm seeing the differences. I'm cruel to it, perhaps; it does not, at least, pretend to be anything it's not, it does not pretend to anything other than be a seaside resort selling seaside rock, plastic buckets and palmistry, and we did go there on a grey weekday in August, but nevertheless, the decay is very evident. The same goes for Southport, which does not have the redeeming feature of, at least, a beautiful beach - and, oh, yes, the beach at Blackpool was beautiful, really beautiful, with shades of grey becoming blue becoming purple becoming Cumbria, great swathes of sunset heading in from the west. The only person I could see from where I was standing was a man throwing sticks for a dog at the edge of the waves. I have a weird, palpable sense of August, these days; like the month has a presence at the edge of things, and nowhere more so in Blackpool, where everything depends on "the season" and the height of it sees one man and his dog on the whole length of sand.

(Perhaps I should not complain about Southport's lack of a proper beach. Otherwise this post would mostly consist of, "So, hey, we invited tau_sigma up for a visit and DROWNED HER.")

But it was a weekday, it was quiet, and it is true we contributed rather less to the local economy than we would have otherwise done because I did not let either Colleen or Tali visit an establishment called The Museum of the Universe: An Alternative Explanation For The Evolution of Mankind (Supported By Maths, Geography Geometry and Plain Common Sense!) They were critical of my morals. Nevertheless, I prevailed. I bought Shim a stick of rock, and we went home with our pedestrian notions about the scientific method unchallenged.

Colleen left us for paid employment; Tali and I watched most of the last series of Torchwood, Children of Earth, and here is what I have to say about that: yes. Sometimes the world is very bleak; sometimes ordinary people have to save the world. Yes. It chilled me a little before bed, though, and today I have mostly pottered around and not done a great deal, although I don't think the two things are related.

Next week, I am in London again - the law firm from last week have called me back for a second interview, and again I am theoretically delighted if practically terrified. Mostly, fingers stay crossed.

Comments

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

YAY!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

:P :P thankyou.

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

Blackpool is just such a bizarre experience, I find; somehow profound, like the world has to make up for the plastic tat and inedible food by inspiring the kind of thoughts you don't get anywhere else.

(Also, lol, you've been to Las Vegas and you're seeing the differences. *snort snort snort* That's mean but, having been to both, hilarious.)

Also, good luck with London omg.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*snerk* Yeah, you're right, it was mean. But really, until you can go to Blackpool and be legally married by an Elvis impersonator, I will find it lacking.

[greek-jester.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had an interesting time. I've always been quite fond of Blackpool, since the first place that I ever went to as a grown-up, having organised the trip, booked the hotel & driven up there. Staying at one of the hotels right up the other end & getting a tram pass for however many days you need it tends to work quite well, I've found. I do agree that it's rather faded, though, & needs a bit of a spruce-up.

Why didn't you go to the museum? It did sound like a good giggle.

If you ever head towards the East Coast for a weekend, feel free to drop me a line. It'd be interesting to meet someone I've only ever spoken to on the 'net in real life.

Re: the driving - I have found (since I'm temporarily living in my mum's house in a road that terminates on a beach) that it's a good idea to pay attention to which side of the car large bodies of water are on. Not only does it save accidents, but it makes navigating much easier. Perhaps I would care less if I owned a pickup truck, which will apparently survive being partially buried in the sand by the tide (among other things - WARNING - contains Jeremy Clarkson, but it is certainly worth it).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/topgear/videos/index.shtml?cat=stunt&id=05

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I loved half blood prince, too. Draco! Oh Draco. And Snape.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Snape! I thought he was just wonderful.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Meep, good luck with London! *crosses fingers*

And lucky you, spotting the Perseids. Too cloudy by half in NYC to see anything, grumblegrumble.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hee, thank you! And really, it was plenty cloudy in Edinburgh, too. We were just lucky that one day.

[kuteki.livejournal.com]

Good luck for the interview.

I loved HBP also, so need to see it again.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

It's awesome, isn't it? I've seen it twice and it's worth it.

[emerald-embers.livejournal.com]

Oh oh oh, speaking of your trip to Blackpool and your thoughts on it; if you haven't already, you MUST beg steal or borrow (or even buy :O) a copy of Bollocks to Alton Towers. You will LOVE it; it's like a little ode to all the weird and wonderful 'attractions' this country comes up with, it's marvellous. I had a good giggle reading it up in the Lake District :).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heh! thanks for the rec!

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Eee, good luck on the interview! Mostly, though, what I came to say is this:

An Alternative Explanation For The Evolution of Mankind (Supported By Maths, Geography Geometry and Plain Common Sense!)

I am pretty sure I have copyedited that book. Except with more God in. :P

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I thought of that when I saw it! It still doesn't beat Abraham Lincoln: His Role In My Downfall, or whatever it was actually called...

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Dude, that book is ON AMAZON NOW. YOU CAN BUY IT. AND YOU KNEW ME WHEN.

(I know this because just this month I got my royalties check for it and went Googling to see who in the world was actually purchasing it.)

[tau_sigma]

You are not ready for THE TRUTH ABOUT THE UNIVERSE, Iona. *shakes head sadly*

Incidentally, I think you took a photo of this most wonderful establishment, which I very remissly did not do - may I possibly have a copy? I'm not sure people will believe me otherwise...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, I'd forgotten! When I upload the batch, you shall certainly have a copy!

[fyrdrakken]

One of the things that made living with my grandmother during my senior year of university so difficult was her unyielding attitude towards proper hours of sleeping and waking: I would be up till the wee hours on weeknights struggling to get chapters read for my classes and hear a creak from the hallway and it would be Grandma, randomly waking and drifting off to my room to check on me and feeling compelled to gripe at me for not being in bed at such an hour. She was filled with the righteousness of her objections and disinclined to hear my logical complaint that she wasn't actually getting me to bed any earlier, but in fact was only delaying me and cutting into my sleeptime by preventing me from finishing my studying. And then I was compelled to work in my father's office Saturday mornings, so Sunday was the only day all week I had in which to try to catch up on a whole week's worth of sleep. So I think you can imagine my reaction to Grandma waking me up at noon or even earlier because she felt I was "wasting the day."

And round about the time an American version of Blackpool premiered, which was actually set in Vegas, I can recall someone or other complaining that the premise quite simply didn't work because Blackpool wasn't Vegas and there was a necessary tension between the tawdriness it was trying to approach in Vegasing itself up and the history as a family-friendly holiday destination. Whereas just plopping the story down in Vegas missed the point.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the second interview.

I haven't been to Blackpool in far too long.

[amchau.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the interview. I wish I could have joined you in Blackpool - in fact, it seems a great shame that I haven't seen you or Colleen at all this summer. When are you in London? I am in Watford for a week so perhaps we could meet up.