A little nostalgia...
Everything came off the walls before I painted hall/stairwell/landing, of course, and most of it was packed away into storage, since I'm going through a less-cluttered phase at the moment. There were a few decorative items that I wanted to keep on display, however, and today Ken got around to putting them up for me (which required hammering three masonry pins into the extremely hard brick walls of this very-well-built 1950's house. You might remember my hands don't cope well with lifting anything the least bit heavy any more, so I have to leave this sort of thing to Ken. As it was it took two bent pins before he managed to get one in straight for my copper unicorn plate on the window-wall...)
These three things encompass a significant part of my life. The Atlas moth (there's a sticker on the back of the display box stating that no rare or endangered species are used) was a gift for my first wedding back in 1983: unfortunately I can't remember who it was from. I kept very little from first marriage, but this moth has an odd resonance for me - it symbolises my escape from that particular torture.
The larger picture is a cotton batik print, bought at a stall that no longer exists in St Nick's Market, professionally framed behind non-reflective glass, a joint present to each other on my and Ken's first (cotton) anniversary in 1990. Depending on the culture, cranes can symbolise communion and marital happiness, a higher state of consciousness, wisdom, balance, grace, knowledge and longevity. This pair are dancing, but in a stately, controlled manner, under a full moon: their plumage is rainbow coloured, and the branch above them is in flower. The pattern has a vaguely Australian feel to it: the figures are outlined in small white dots. It's only ever come off the wall for me to paint, and it's always the first thing to go back up when the paint is dry.
The small case contains a caduga melaneus swinhoei. I haven't been able to find out much about it, but I think it's probably Asian: the text on the mounting card is in Chinese and Japanese (with English in the middle). Kai and I rescued it from the small charity shop in Sandy Park Rd a few weeks ago.
My copper unicorn plate was a present from Ken a good few years back now, when I was actively collecting unicorns (and before I acquired too many to cope with!) Ignore the grey smudges on it - that's my reflection: I had to use the flash given the light quality today!

Catching up on a few things I've been meaning to say...
Drawn Together Season 2. [sigh] I watched the first two episodes, then kept forgetting and having to catch the repeats, then around ep seven I forgot completely, which pretty much sums up my opinion of this season - forgettable. Pinning down why it's so inferior to the first season is tricky: the format is much the same (though the creators do seem to have tried to cram too much into most episodes), its record of offending everyone remains intact, it's even more tasteless than ever - so what's gone wrong? Perhaps it's simply that the characters were more fun when they were naïve and relatively innocent: now they're jaded and surprisingly boring.
Ah well. It's a pity, but we've seen it happen time and time again with sequels.
The new Dr Who, on the other hand, has to be my favourite so far, and not just because of Tennant's absolutely enormous eyes (though they help!) This series seems to be trying to explore the sheer loneliness of being the last of your species and essentially immortal, as well as continuing to delve more deeply into the personalities (and jealousies) of the stars. Love it. I'm still sitting down to watch it, rather than just catching a bit here and there while at the computer...

Writing... When it comes to fiction, there is very little new under any sun. It's been said that all human stories can be distilled down into 5 or 6 basic plots (the only one I've ever been able to remember is The Quest. Anyone know the others?) and all novels are variations on these fundamental premises. Which is perfectly understandable and acceptable - it makes sense, when writing for humans, to use elements that have a deep personal and cultural resonance with your audience, otherwise they will a) not understand you or b) not enjoy your writing, and a huge part of the joy of writing is, after all, to share your own visions with others and have them enjoy the tales too.
I'm not a great fan of romance as a genre - well, I thoroughly enjoy Jane Austen, but her writing is as much historical social commentary as romance - but in general I don't mind it (except for Barbara Cartland, who deserves a whole rant to herself). You could even say that part of my own writing - that's the material written to be published, which is superior to that which I post online - is a form of romance, although I deal with alien characters, emotions, courtship and sex (and even so I have to be careful not to go to far and risk alienating - pun intended - my audience). I just don't usually read (or watch) romances.
I write (and read) s-f - 'speculative fiction', as Harlan Ellison once phrased it. It includes science-fiction, fantasy, and things that don't quite fit into any other category. It's one of the hardest of all genres to write well. The world-frame must be believable, and no matter how fanciful the subject matters must be feasible: you can have dragons and aliens and super-intelligent shades of the colour blue as long as you get the context right. Many people fail (trust me, I've read some in my capacity as reviewer for SFCrowsnest) and the results are cringe-worthy. It takes imagination, logic, extrapolation and a hell of a lot of research to get it right. [grins at Sue, GoodTwin and Lutra] Excellent betas help too...
Regular readers may remember that Lutra sent over Ritual of Proof in her last parcel...
The book purports to be a sci-fi romance, something like a Jane Austen novel set in the future [later edit: on a moon - in a distant planetary system I think - that had been colonised by human women a thousand years ago] but with today's gender stereotypes reversed: the women hold all the power, the men are pretty little things bought and sold to provide heirs, warm the beds, and not much else. Hm. Well, OK, I've read this sort of thing before. No, I don't remember titles, or even much of the plots: as I said, I'm not a great fan of romances. Though I do remember finding Ariel's Dance unobjectionable and quite amusing in places...
[shudder] The writer has taken what could have been an interesting premise and gaudily slathered it in the most lurid shades of purple. I'm going to assume the couple of pages in italics at the beginning of the book are relevant to something that happens further in and ignore them for the moment (in fact they irritated me, which is not a good way to start a book...) By the time I'd finished the prologue I was ready to spit - Oh look! Beautiful, sensual, experienced, competent, "exquisite" amber-eyed, auburn haired (of course) Mary Sue - sorry, heroine - having problems with her beautiful but evil (and black-haired) Nemesis. Lovely. Please feel free to shove the entire plot in my face before I've even started the book, it saves so much time later on. And here, in chapter one, the heroine - Green - meets the hero - Jorlan - and they fall in love (well, lust, anyway) immediately.
[blink] Uh, what? These two characters - who have known each other since childhood - have spent most of their lives avoiding romantic entanglements... Where's the subtlety? The tension? The reality of it?
Green decides she wants him. Of course, so does the villain(ess) of the book. Not only is he extravagantly beautiful (as we're told over and over and over again every few paragraphs until I could wish bloody leprosy upon him), he's also a 'sensitive'. Yes, well, no doubt we'll be told in interminable detail exactly what that entails at some point in the book, but quite frankly I couldn't care less. I'm bored already.
If the 'plot' weren't bad enough, the style is intensely irritating. I could - just, if you bribed me - overlook the misuse of the language (Loreena had been passionate and unique, so I very much doubt she flaunted convention: I assume the writer means flouted. Any decent editor would have picked that one up), the abuse of 'manhood' and the overuse of 'incredible' and 'sweet', not to mention the irritating changes of idiom in the characters' speech, but what I can't forgive is the writer's using an unfamiliar term - then breaking the entire flow of the story to tell the reader, in great detail, what it means. AAAARRRGGGHHH!!! Pet hate! The Mark of the Amateur!
Excuse me while I go and lie down and try to bring my blood pressure back to normal...
..................
OK. I'm calm now. Honestly.
I'm unsure whether to admire or boggle at Lutra's tenacity in actually finishing this bilge: I don't think I can, and I'm only on chapter three. So let's see. I predict the villainess will do something nasty to the male - kidnap him? That's fairly standard for this sort of plot - and Green will have to rescue him, aided by his 'sensitive' powers, and there will be much suffering, but there will of course be a happy ending, with peace and equality for the good guys and the bad ones getting their just reward. Lutra, am I right? Does anything at all interesting happen? If not I shall stop reading there and save my blood pressure.
What startled me was my ridiculously strong reaction to the book. I mentioned it on ICQ and Lutra had a response I found interesting:

You write excellent sci-fi. The book is a personal insult.

Well, I wouldn't call it excellent, but it's better than this, and better than a lot I review, so I suppose that could explain why I'm so... affronted...
Right. </rant> Let's get back to something far more amenable. 2AC 1.4.11 finished and 1.4.12 started - another pivotal chapter.