Designated Human

Firstly I am consumed by fear and awe at this story news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8362658.stm

Moorcock was one of my favourite authors growing up and pre about 1990 I have a copy of pretty much everything that he ever wrote. Yes, this is where most of my student grant went. Ah, those were the days. Latterly I haven't rated his stuff that much so what he comes up with I await with interest.

Books read so far this month. 'Ilario' by Mary Gentle. Humongously good alternate history with a fabulous cast as ever including a hermaphrodite hero/heroine and a romp through mediaeval Europe and North Africa including a Carthage that never fell and the last of the Pharoahs.

By total contrast 'No Country for Old Men' and 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. Sparse, beautiful, perfect. Not a word too many, not a word out of place. 'The Road' made me cry.

And 'Transition' by Iain Banks. Normally an author I really really rate but this was rather dissatisfying. Fascinating, wierd and wonderful characters pretty much in search of a plot.

Just about to embark on what is my biannual read of 'Rats & Gargoyles' again by Mary Gentle. That should take me through the week.


Best TV last week

As above only Sanctuary and Stargate

Filched from rowan_d

Post a paragraph from every WIP you can find. No explanations allowed, just the excerpt.

Okay... here goes. In the vain hope that my writing mojo returns one of these days. And I've been somewhat generous with the concept of a paragraph

So Nano... toyed with the idea of doing it, but since the most creative thing I've written (outside of reports for work) in recent memory was a haiku I think I'm approximately 49,990 words short of having the faintest idea of what to write.  So... no, not this year.

( go on go on go on go on... )

Did have more to say but mind is now pleasantly fuzzed.

Somewhat stream of consciousness as its been a long day

( spoilerzzzzzz... )

So...

after weeks of bemoaning why I spend so much money for tv when there's never anything to watch, a plethora of new seasons/new programmes.

So far:
Warehouse 13 - abandoned after episode 4 - very formulaic
Supernatural - ditto.  Relegated to watching if there's nothing else on.
True Blood - Still to watch episode 1 before episode 2 on Wednesday
Stargate Universe: surprisingly good so far given less than positive prepublicity/fan opinion.  Will continue to watch.
Flashforward - loving it.  ( possible spoiler )
Being Erica - surprisingly loving it given the saccharine content.  Cute lead actress helping immensely in this.         
And last but most definitely not least: Sanctuary Season 2.  ( Spoiler space )   Bloody marvellous my dears.  Simply bloody marvellous.

And on a very different note.  One of the most inspiring stories I've ever read

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8299780.stm

GHOST IN THE MACHINE

 

By Celievamp (jo.raine@ntlworld.com)

 

Genre: Torchwood / Criminal Minds   Pairing: Toshiko Sato / Penelope Garcia

Criminal Minds: Set season 4 ish.  Torchwood: post Children of Earth.  Quoted dialogue from Season Two “Exit Wounds”

 

Disclaimer: Torchwood belongs to the BBC and Russell T Davies.  Criminal Minds belongs to CBS.

 

 

Written for Fragments of Sappho

Using:          for it is not right in a house of the Muses

that there be lament

this would not become us

 

Wordcount: 962

 

Rating: Mild

 

Synopsis: Garcia receives help from an unusual source.

 

THE BREAKING SKY

By Celievamp (jo.raine@ntlworld.com)

Disclaimer: only the order of words is mine.

Genre: Stargate Pairing: Sam/Janet

Set: Post-Heroes AU Heroes. Alludes to Window of Opportunity.

Drabble.


Note: only 100 words, but its the first thing I've written in a month so I'm celebrating.  It just landed in my brain pretty much word for word.

 

THE BREAKING SKY

Too much knowledge.  I should have remembered Malachi.  Reality fractures with every reiteration.  I meet myself dying, crying, screaming.  I see her body, Daniel’s body, the Colonel’s body.  I see myself, still reaching out to her empty eyed, lost.

The sky is breaking.  No longer blue, silver rent with black, searing acid deep.  I cannot save her.  Reality a shattered mirror shards of pain, sorrow burrowing deeper as I watch her die again.

The Ancients said it could not be done, not that it should not be done.  But I did it anyway.  For the love of her.  For Janet.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8204207.stm

An Afghan bill allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex has been published in the official gazette and become law....

I'm sorry... what are we fighting for over there again?

Especially since this weekend sees the 200th and 201st British soldiers to die in the campaign, and the first one (I think) from my home town.  He was only nineteen.

So You Say You Like To Read meme

 

Filched from marygriggs 

How come my mother can't remember the names of her children but can sing along (and remember most of the dialogue) to 'The King and I'?  The memory is a mighty strange thing.  It was nice to see her look genuinely happy though, singing along to the dvd with her friends Marie and David.

Feeling generally meh! at the moment.  Tired and achey.  Left shoulder and arm are really giving me problems.  Physiotherapy made it worse rather than better so my options appear to be two-fold.  Living with it or having surgery which might work or might make it a lot worse.  Knowing my luck...  So I'm working on improving my posture generally which should ease it a little and chewing co-codomol when it gets really bad.  I now appear to have a body part that is a better weather predictor than the Met office.

Work is fairly frenetic.  Plotting likely flu epidemic scenario's - always fun.  Helping to write the Trust Board Quarterly Report and another report on Mortality Indicators.

And on the 11th I will have been there a year, which is frankly scary.

The new office is working out much better than I expected.  The ambient temperature is a lot nicer than our old office, it's fairly quiet at our end of the open plan and I can see the sky! cloudscapes rolling down off the Cleveland Hills.  Happysigh.

Have a couple of days off mainly to decompress a little and finish of my littlebigbang  story before I lose the will to live or the moderators send the heavy mob round.   Have lots of ideas for lots of other stories - just not the one that was supposed to be finished a month ago.  Bloody typical.

And the sodding cricket got rained off.  Just when it looked like we might be a bit good.

 

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

HUMAN KINDNESS

 

By Celievamp (jo.raine@ntlworld.com)

 

Disclaimer: Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS and various others own CSI, not me.  I just played in their sandpit for a while.

 

Set during the Season 5 Episode: Nesting Dolls.   Part of the Nina Simone Suite.  Sequel to ‘How Deep it Goes’

 

Soundtrack: Nina Simone - I Think It's Going To Rain Today (1968) lyrics and music Randy Newman from "And Piano"

 

Pairing: Sara Sidle / Mia Dickerson  PWP

 

Rating: Mature

 

Synopsis:  Sara reaches out from the darkness – but who will take her hand?

 

 

A YEAR AND A DAY

 

By Celievamp (jo.raine@ntlworld.com)

 

Genre: Torchwood.  Pairing: Johnson / Alice Carter

 

Disclaimer: Torchwood belongs to the BBC and Russell T Davies.  This is just a collection of scenes they didn’t get round to doing.

 

Spoilers: Post Children of Earth.  Spoilers for that.

 

Rating: Mature

 

Synopsis:  A year and a day in the life of Alice Carter.

 

To everyone I promised fiction this week - I'm sorry

Week from hell at work.  Gazillion reports landed unexpectedly on my desk on Tuesday to be done by Thursday.  Oh, and we were moving offices this week as well.  Computers were dismantled 4pm Wednesday and I finally got it up and running and on hte network again in the new office 1pm Thursday (because I got sick of waiting for IT to turn up to do it).

Commute home last night was horrendous - torrential rain and traffic snarl ups pretty much door to door because of two separate chemical leaks (Phenol and Cyanide!) and several traffic accidents.  Two hours and 15 minutes door to door.  ach.  Got in at 7 was in bed by ten having spent intervening 3 hours pretty much staring into space and trying to remember what the symptoms for swine flu were again?

Don't think I've got it btw.  Touch of the old chronic fatigue kicking in.

This morning (6.50am) it is so dark outside that I have the lights on.  Heading off to work in a few minutes.  I don't do well in the wet so it's going to be a fun day.

Need to finish my littlebigbang piece this weekend or various mods will be after blood.  And foolishly I promised Rachel 2 pieces for the IDF update at P&P and they're both at about 99% done - and have been since Tuesday.  Will try to find time today to look them over again and finish them off - one Torchwood, one CSI.

Anyway, better squelch off to work I suppose.

This is the day the world ended or...

( here be spoilers )

Has to be one of the most intense hours of tv I've ever seen

( erm... spoilers )

Gwen Cooper - I think I love you

And that's all for today... probably

And there's more...

continues...