Friday 27 February 2009

women in film

bibi van der zee has an engaging article in the guardian today about sexism in films – it references alison bechdel’s film test – one of her characters won’t watch a film unless it has at least
a) two female characters that
b) have a conversation which is
c) not about a man.

it’s surprising how many films fail this test.

i’m not hugely into film – i enjoy them but usually i can’t be bothered to put in the time commitment – i’d rather read. i wonder if this is part of the reason.

time to check out the birds eye film festival running from 9 - 13 march at the southbank - a film festival showcasing the best female film makers from around the world!

Thursday 26 February 2009

thanks geo

comics now fit. and i've learned something new :)

Wednesday 25 February 2009

can anyone tell me

how to change the settings so that half my &(**^&^%&^ cartoon doesn't hang off the end???

yay pirate bay!



Thursday 19 February 2009

update

the coaster is still in my pocket, but my knickers are not only clean, they're brand new.

uk ambulance crews can rest easier...

Wednesday 18 February 2009

and another thing

well, actually, i just don't want to go to bed.

not that i don't like bed, i do - or sleeping - heavens - i'm a 9-hour-a-night woman if given half a chance.

what i'm really hating is work. i only have 3 1/2 weeks left in this contract and i am sooooo detaching. in fact, i'm detached. i even brought home my coaster yesterday, the one i bring to all my jobs that has an artistic rendition of a duck with a stethoscope around its neck with the caption, "trust me, i'm a ductor".

although it's still in my coat pocket. so i guess i'm in limbo. if a coaster is symbolic, that is.

i hate these waiting times.

god - imagine if i were in a traffic accident and not only were my knickers dirty but i could only be identified by a duck coaster.

Saturday 14 February 2009

Friday 13 February 2009

stealing from geo

i'm gonna steal geo's meme. is that allowed?

current clothes: an old orange jumper of n's that shrunk, jeans, saturday hair (unwashed), and an old pair of crocs. i am so glam.

current mood: happy-tired with a pinch of foreboding

current music: some programme n's playing with that is reading out the names of planets and stars (i assume as he clicks on something) in a weird, disembodied, posh female voice. her pronunciation is crap.

current annoyance: see above.

current thing: banana bread! comfort food of the highest (lowest?) order. it is in the oven now. we will eat 2 slices, rhapsodize, and then leave it to go moldy on the the kitchen counter. this is not a new thing.

current desk top picture: it's a field. who looks at their desktop??

current book: country of my skull by antjie krog. amazing. the writing is incredible, and what she is writing about is so unimaginably awful. she is a south african poet and journalist, and she covered the truth and reconciliation hearings. this book is her writing about that. i really can't recommend it enough.

current song in head: some classical thing, horn-heavy

current dvd in dvd player: don't have a dvd player, just stream and download. last thing watched was the rachel maddow show from msnbc. last movie watched was fight club. see how current i am?

current refreshment: a rapidly diminishing pint of freeminor honey ale.

current worry: the reading i have yet to start for my class on tuesday. the 4 weeks of work left ahead of me before my jail time is complete. oh yeah, forgot to mention, my contract at work is finishing in a month. this is, my friends, a good thing, believe me.

current thought: gosh darn it, is that banana bread burning?

Wednesday 11 February 2009

exploding part 2

this is a really weird week - an inside-out week. one of the courses i'm taking this term, the before mentioned post-apartheid jurisprudence, runs from 6 - 9, mon- thurs this week, reading week. i'll say.

in a brilliant preparatory move i booked the week off work. i'm home all day (frantically reading) and then go into london all evening. trains are much nicer this way.

the course is incredibly interesting, on a lot of levels. it's taught by a south african scholar from pretoria (hence the one week thing). it's lots of legal theory, but in a real context which makes it more pragmatic, and gets us into all kind of sticky theoretical corners which is fun. we're looking at the intersections of law and politics, constitutional systems, judicial activism, how societies are transformed (or not), the effects of authoritarianism and colonialism and racism on humanity and our ability to transcend/fix/deny these things - all in the sense of the post-apartheid legal system. the reading has been illuminating; well chosen articles that have really made me think. there's only about 12 of us so there's room for discussion.

i find myself fascinated, in a moth-to-candle sense, by the idea of change, of re-structure. can we change, tweak systems of law or politics to enact a new result? or does the neo-liberal privitising/corporate/money system now bulldoze across any ideas of incremental, or even whole-scale change? is there any way to reconcile the open wound of colonialism? or will we, like the bankers in today's paper, just offer platitudes of regret and carry on as normal? and what will be the repercussions of that (as i am fairly confident that is what is/has/will happen/ed/ing)?

and that's just the start! the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

on a lighter note, apparently british critical lawyers* are known as britcrits. which makes me smirk.

*a term used to describe people who think that law and politics are to a certain extent inseparable and changeable, and the sooner we admit the fact and get on with things, the better - i paraphrase, obviously

Monday 9 February 2009

exploding...

just back from my first post-apartheid jurisprudence lecture. 3 hours of critical law theory. my ...head... is... exploding.............

Monday 2 February 2009

it's not snowing, it's a snow event

so sayeth the bbc.

also this:

"...and with wind chill, we could be looking at temperatures as low as -1 so be careful..."

i awoke to the cacophony of no trains - we live beside the trainline and the rumble of trains is quite comforting, not quite noticeable and always in the deep background. this morning was ominously quiet, which woke me up.

no trains. the greatest snowfall in 20 years said the bbc. i listened to this as i drank my coffee looking out onto the centimeter or so of frozen snow that made up faversham's contribution to the "snow event". it seems the snow missed our corner of east kent - not that it made any difference - when you work in london, you rather need trains going there, and buses when you arrive, neither of which were forthcoming today.

"are you warm and safe?" my boss rang my mobile to ask me this morning. "yes," i replied, looking down at my slippers."well, then - stay put," he instructed.

good grief.

when my parents were here at christmas, they left winnipeg in -35 c.
on one of our many walks, crossing the kent salt marshes with a nasty north wind whipping our scarves and taking our breath, I complained about the cold. "cold?" my father yelled through the wind, "COLD???? what kind of canadian are you?" and, never one to miss an opportunity for comedic effect, clutched at his chest, proclaiming, "you break your father's heart..."

i can hear him laughing from here.

but hey, why look a snow day on the mouth? we decamped to the pub with the papers and proceeded to "keep warm" with bells on.

i do feel though like i may have revoked some sort of canadian citizenship test...