Flaming Fairy

A general update on me and mine, just for the record.

HL has got a place on a therapeutic horticulture course in Coventry University, starting in September. It's not a full on 3 year undergraduate degree course, more of a professional development diploma style thing that involves a number of days attendance and some distance learning. It means he'll be travelling between London and Coventry a fair bit :-(

The Masters I want to do looks like it will actually start this September! They've put off the start date twice now, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is definite.

I have the boringest day imaginable on Friday - a "staff development" day which seems more or less a glorified departmental meeting. Cue lots of pointless gum-flapping and me wanting to stab my own eyes out in preference to staying a moment longer. ARGH!

I also have a very boring planning meeting to go to in about ten minutes. I was hoping the people who had invited me had forgotten but no, alas and alackaday, there was a little reminder in my email inbox. BOO!

And finally, I got me a Dreamwidth account, but I fucked up the username. And there's no way of changing it. Anyone else got another invite code?

My computer is back from the menders and it works...IT WORKS! It's been about a month, I think, since I first reported the fault and it's been back to me once, unfixed. Then Teleplan, the Toshiba repair people and I had a disagreement about them trying to charge me for their own incompetence (oh the power of the hissy fit - I won!) and now, finally, my sweet sweet PC is back on my lap and purring like a kitten. Deep joy and much rejoicing.

Was the young people's special, I think, as all the audience seemed to be 16 - 21 or thereabouts. Panel was Shami Chakrabarti, who I normally can't stand but who was quite good last night, Rachel Teather of the Lib Dems (a particularly odious grouping in British politics, if you ask me), some cutie from the Tories, Andy Burnham the minister for mascara and eyebrow pencil (apparently, he naturally looks like a drag queen who has been slapdash with the cold cream) and a student called Susan (who calls their kids Susan any more FFS). I think I'm missing someone out, but what the hell.

Anyway, the question was asked "Have the government encouraged too many people to go to university" and the conversation soon took the expected turn, which is not that the government has encouraged too many people to go to university but that it has encouraged too many of the "wrong" people to go to university.

Susan made it quite clear that she, being white and middle class, was obviously university material, but all those oiks from the estate would be better off being directed into hairdressing or plumbing. Rachel Teather agreed with her, waxing lyrical about hairdressing as a career. I wonder if she'll be encouraging her own children to attend FE college to do hair and beauty...hmm. Some tit from the audience then talked about degrees being "watered down" (i.e. my father was only one of a handful of graduates, but now I have to share this title with the sons of dustmen for heaven's sake) and there was the usual whinging about top-up fees and calls for free education (who'd end up paying for that then? Back in the days of grants it was my mum and dad paying for the sons and daughters of stockbrokers from Surrey to go to uni).

Gah! The debate makes me so angry. It's like some people think education after the age of 18 should only be for PLU - people like us - because, of course, we all know that talent and aptitude is dependent on daddy's income, right? What people rarely mention is the fact that, given the chance to go to university, oiks from comprehensives regularly outperform poshos from St Custard's. This is in spite of the fact that they are more likely to live at home and to have to work during term time, both of which inhibit their ability to take part in extra-curricular activities which have been positively correlated with good academic results.

Shami Chakrabarti made the point that she was in no position to deprive people of the kind of education that had changed her life and thus Susan and Teather were comprehensively shut up. Amen to that, my little squashy-faced sister!

Dawn Penn - You Don't Love Me

Fuckin fantastic



A Tribe Called Quest - I Left My Wallet In El Segundo

Cool as fuck



And to complete the "use of the fuck word" trio, this is the fuckin business geez

Beastie Boys - Girls

...and there's a rumour that Lisa is also up, due to some manipulation by BB. YAY! Either one can go as far as I'm concerned, though the loathsome disco bunny would be my first choice. The shock on Kris and Karly's face would be a joy to behold. Almost as sweet a moment of Schadenfreude as the eviction of Kat last year.



Karly and Kris, Friday (we can only hope)

Update KRIS AND SOPHIE UP FOR EVICTION TOO!!! Kris is a goner, the Kris hate is strong out there.

Apparently, it was Gay Pride this weekend, in the year that marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which lit a fire under the nascient gay liberation movement and changed gay men and women's history forever. Not that you'd have known it, given that Pride's motto was "Come Out and Play". So, just another chance for muscle marys and drag queens to wobble about to Girls Aloud then.

I stopped going to Pride once it was obvious the political message was being over-ridden by the party element. Oh, don't get me wrong, the party element was always an important part of it for me, but Pride had become just another of those dates on the festival calendar, a sort of pre or post-Glasto stop off for another afternoon's drinking in a field. There seemed no point in going to an event that had no message other than "come and get pissed and dance to third rate pop stars at the dog-end of their career".

Pride has changed a bit since then. It has a higher profile, marching through the heart of London and ending up in Trafalgar Square, where the main stage is, with various other stages dotted around the West End. But so far, it has used this high profile only to further promote the idea that all gay people are about is fun fun FUN (of a certain, prescribed kind, and only for a handful of a certain type of people - no fats, fems or over-forties puh-LEASE Miss Thing!)

Being associated with brainless hedonism damages the gay community (if such a thing exists, and I doubt that it does, but it will suffice as an umbrella term for now). It means we're not taken seriously. In fact, it perpetuates stereotypes and reinforces oppression. Anyone who speaks out for gay rights, for equality or just for Pride to be something more than a big old piss-up gets accused of being a drama queen, or a wet blanket. There's a perception that all the battles have been won, so what's the use in whining on, let's just swallow a load of class As, bare those disco-titties and DANCE!

But the fact is that, despite greater legal equality in this country than we've ever had before, homophobia still exists. While lucky Londoners get to shake their lallies at a whole range of swank new bars and clubs, there are still areas of Britain where to be gay is to invite ostracism and isolation, persecution and victimization. "Gay" is still a term of abuse in the playground (and don't give me that shit about words redefining themselves - yes, sure they do, but as long as you still have people who identify as gay, the word being used as an insult will still have an impact outside the merely semantic). There is a rise in homophobic hate crime across the board. People still die at the hands of homophobic murderers.

But even if the situation in the UK is improving, globally the picture for gay people remains grim. You only have to look at Iran to see that. Gay people there get hanged simply for being gay. Some gay men are more or less forced to mutilate themselves through gender realignment surgery just to live their lives unhampered by the theocracy's machines of oppression. The battle hasn't even begun yet in Iran.

The spirit of those brave queens who decided on June 28, 1969 that they weren't going to take any more still lives on. But you wouldn't know it, if you were relying on Pride to show it.

You were a little shit in the house, and remain a little shit out of it.

Favourite part of his eviction interview? The bit where Davina told him he'd got 85% of the public vote. How do you like them apples, ya twat?

Marcus mimicked Sree's accent and BAM, BB was down on him like a sack of shite for being "offensive". It was ridiculous, of course, and all brought about because of the Shilpa Shetty fiasco in CBB5. Marcus quite rightly called bullshit on them for it, adn went up even more in my estimation.

So, with one of Club Complacent out the door, things might just change around them parts. I suspect Lisa and her crew of dullards will interpret this as the public being more annoyed by Sree than by Freddie, not realizing that Freddie seeing off every single HM he's been up against is a sign of his popularity with the public.

What they might think now, though, is that putting an HM up against Freddie is a surefire way of getting rid of them. The knives are out for Marcus, it would appear. Marcus vs Freddie would be a nightmare eviction scenario. For once, I hope BB manipulates noms. In fact, I think BB MUST manipulate the noms or manipulate the eviction in some way otherwise we are left with the possibility of the Lisa-Kris Nexus of Numptietude picking off the interesting housemates one by one, and the highlights show consisting of Kris pawing Sophie and Lisa disconsolately picking through the ciggy butts while telling everyone not to get involved, not to kick off, not to do anything remotely interesting.

Please BB - new housemates, an "all up and two out" eviction or something to break up Club Complacent, I AM BEGGING YOU!

This is extraordinarily beautiful. Had me in tears (not hard I know) Philippe Jaroussky - Vedro con mio diletto by Vivaldi

Lovely, lovely Mollie Sugden.

Mrs Slocombe's pussy is finally at peace.

So my darling PC is still with the nice doctor-man, and I'm still having to use HL's Mac, hence the dearth of posting because I don't like HL's Mac. But a few thoughts: -

- I really hate Charlie on BB10

- I really hate marking

- I could also quite cheerfully do without this fucking heat

That is all.

Her Maj is seeking a big increase in the civil list

THE Queen is seeking the first increase in the annual civil list for nearly 20 years to plug a looming £5m-a-year funding gap for the royal household.

Palace officials have told the Treasury they need the dramatic rise to the £7.9m grant because they are exhausting their cash reserves and cannot make further cuts in spending.

I've only got one thing to say about this: fuck off you sponging inbreed, pay for it out of your own pocket. That is all.

Michael Jackson.

Wow, it's weird. I feel almost like I did when Diana died. Someone is part of the wallpaper of your life for so long, you imagine they've always been there and always will be. Except, unlike with Diana, I was a big fan of MJ. A true genius in the real sense of the word. Totally sui generis. Flawed, fucked-up but fantastic. I only wish I'd got to see him perform live.

Favourite MJ track? Probably Billie Jean, but Wanna Be Startin Something is right up there too.

Requiescat in pacem. This classic Stevie Smith poem seems so apt, somehow

Not Waving But Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Yeah, I know it's just a pretty disposable piece of trancey dancey gubbins, but I effin LOVE this

Pure Imagination - Ford

I think a transitting Mercury is doing the hoodoo-voodoo on my native Uranus, because it's been nothing but trouble with electronic communication devices for the past two weeks. My phone jammed up the other day so that I had to take the battery out and put it back in again before it would work properly. And my computer came back from Toshiba hospital STILL NOT WORKING! So now they're going to have to take it back to the hospital and look at it again because there's a problem with the AC cable. ARGH! I'm using HL's Mac, but it's not the same and the screen is so tiny and I HATE not having my own laptop to use. Why the fuck did they not test it before sending it back to me? If it comes back a second time and still isn't working, I'm going to see if they can't be shamed into sending me a replacement laptop. BASTARDS!

In other news, BB was brilliant last night! Live nominations, against the clock. They should do noms like that EVERY week, and make it so that if they don't nom in the time allotted, they get put up for eviction. That'd make the whole process much more exciting and much more pressured. But some shenanigans have been going on in the house, quite clearly, as there seems to have been a consensus among a certain grouping to nom Angel for exactly the same reasons. I exclude my darling little Karly from all this, as she has nommed Angel from the start. And in a serious WTF situation, Noirin didn't nom Sree! But she DID nom Halfwit, who used his special birthday pressie from BB to stop her having to apply the glasses and tache. Cowbag! Gone right off her. Had she nommed Sree, that hideous little fuckwit would have been up and we could have booted him out the house. Bah!

As it is, we have to sacrifice Angel to ensure the survival of Halfwit. The other HMs will start thinking he's invincible and maybe they'll start turning on each other MWAHAHAHAAAAAA.

This week, I am still loving Siavash and Karly, but am also finding Marcus is growing on me.

I am still loathing Charlie and now also Noirin.

So soon after that other one? Well, yes, but only because things are simmering nicely in that house in Borehamwood, and I reckon it's about to get interesting.

First off, can we talk about Sree and Noirin? Oh, I know, it's the BB equivalent of Mogadon, or at least it was. Because, all of a sudden, there seems to have been developments on that front that mean it might not be the most yawnsome story since Ziggy and Chanelle. Sree made some unpleasant comments about Marcus and his renowned halitosis which Noirin took exception to, mainly because I think she's been waiting to take exception to something so that he'll quit humping her leg. Well, anyway, this all blew up into a playground style fight with Noirin camped out in the bedroom with Siavash and Marcus and Sree out in the garden, urging Lisa to act as go-between. It remains pretty much unresolved, so that's bubbling on the stove.

Then of course, there is the Case of the Missing Ciders That Weren't Really Missing. Kris went to look for some cans and in an attack of "male refrigerator blindness" (© Halfwit 2009) missed the five cans sitting in the fridge door. He then accused Angel of having snaffled them. Angel who isn't drinking at the moment. She was mightily upset. Charlie attempted to mollify her, but the bad blood this has caused isn't going to go away any time soon.

And then there was Charlie's bizarre behaviour at the end of the highlights show, in which he flirted with Angel and then carried out some very mean ribbing of Freddie. It was, I think, meant to appear funny and cheeky but came across as bullying and unpleasant, giving just a hint of what lurks behind Charlie's chirpy chappie persona.

These three factors are bound to converge at some point, either noms, an eviction or a task failure. And then the fireworks will fly. Watch this space. The Summer of Love may be about to come to an end.

And the third eviction of BB10 hoves into view.

Cairon, the flobbing nob is odds on to be booted. One could almost feel sorry for Cairon: if personality were chocolate, he'd be a Smartie. While he might be OK in a tube of Smarties, might even stand out a little, he is in that house with some personalities straight out of a Lindt selection box. On the highlights last night, which you might expect to show a little more of the potential evictees, the editors still found Marcus showing the gristly bit in his nose more entertaining than pretty much anything Cairon had done.

Talking of the highlights, has anyone noticed how they've become the Sree Show? I mean, do all the other housemates only exist to react to, to be foil for or to provide stories for Sree? In a weird reversal of the usual situation, the housemates seem to find him entertaining while I just want to punch his lights out. And whenever he and Noirin are on screen together, and he is pawing at her and declaring his love, I find something more pleasurable to do. Like cleaning out the cat litter.

Poor Noirin! Not only does she have the Sreepuppy rubbing his twitching lipstick up against her leg, she has Marcus trying to bargain for a flash of her nips with the promise of a can of cider. Oh the romance! The man is totally delusional. He eats pet food, has an uber-mullet and a face like a bulldog chewing several wasps while licking piss off a stinging nettle and he seriously thinks he has a chance with Noirin, a woman so babelicious that even I, as a leading member of the homosexual club, can recognize her sexiosity.

And Angel is now eating again, after her failed hunger strike in support of Noirin's ongoing campaign to remove the permanent marker glasses she has had to wear since launch night. I wish they'd let the poor girl wipe them off. Whatever joke value they had wore out long long ago.

So, I'm off out to the pub tonight, but the digibox is set to record Cairon's eviction. Perhaps he'll reveal himself to be PhD material, merely putting on an act of being a slightly sex-pesty dullard. But I doubt it.

In other news, Charlie really does have a mighty fine pair of buttocks and I even fancied Kris in his Ole Bamboo outfit, which is surely a testament to his Teh Hot status.

This week I am mostly supporting Karly, Siavash and Freddie.

I am mostly loathing on Marcus, Cairon and Sree.

I remember about two years ago slagging off some poetry by Patience Agbabi, but I have been totally converted to her brilliance by reading her latest collection Bloodshot Monochrome. It's absolutely terrific, I love it and, having seen her on YT, she reads well and has a great attitude. I'm a FAN!

Cecilia Bartoli - Agitata da due venti by Vivaldi



Heard this on Radio 3 on way in to work and was completely gobsmacked. Blimey, I'd need a long lie-down after working so hard!

What's wonderful/frightening about Comment Is Free is that every now and then, the commentators will prove the truth of the article above them. Such is the case with Nick Cohen's latest.

...it never rains but it pours. Not only is my back giving me gyp; not only am I down to my last 20 quids; not only am I having trouble with the digital TV receiver but now NOW my pooter is poorly and has to go to Toshiba Hospital for repairs. Argh!!!

But at least I'm not Iranian.