dorsetgirl

Jeez, I just followed a link to a new comm someone was pimping.

First, I had to click THREE TIMES that I was over 18. What, do they think someone's going to say "All right, you got me, I was lying the first and second times"?

Then finally, the post itself and following links to the rules. Just the four words I'm not familiar with - triggering, ableism, shotacon and transphobia - although I can obviously guess at some of them. (NO, I do not have time to go googling right now!)

I dunno, I always feel very uncomfortable at Dreamwidth. Like you've got to be really cool and super-PC to even be allowed to read there. Everything seems to have vicious and completely over-the-top warnings all over the place - I don't know why I even clicked, because I always regret it. It seems like such an unfriendly place.

And to think, I only went wandering t'net because everything I'm trying to do today is going wrong - I was just looking for five minutes' relaxation. Must remember next time: Do Not Click - Dreamwidth is not for people like me.


Ah well, at least in choosing the icon for this post I've just spent a few minutes gazing at Mike Dirnt's crotch, so I feel happier now...

Ah, the British Press. I think this probably qualifies as "getting it in under the radar".

David Aaronovitch in yesterday's Times - it's a comment piece on Ed Miliband's "I won, AND I beat my brother," speech the other day:

"All generations, it seems to me, have their share of onanists, the most seed-scattering of whom talk a lot about their generation."

The full text of the article is here

My kids have an assault-course type of special activity day next week, and I expressed my concerns to the school that it might be prejudicial to the fitness of those students (including my oldest) who are doing their Duke of Edinburgh Expedition less than forty-eight hours later.

I received a prompt and polite reply from the day's co-ordinator, and some highlights of the letter are given below. It's all very interesting, and should have been reassuring, but honestly: this person teaches my son. Does this letter give any indication that she realises he is on the Autistic spectrum?


...the blindfold minefield which relies on communication skills...

...the day is predominately concerned with communication skills...

...if they feel they are doing too much, they need to communicate this to their team leader...


You know, it would be nice if she'd said "I realise that last point might be difficult for [your son], so I will make sure his team leader understands the situation."

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What is it with teachers and Posters?

So often my kids come home with “Do a Poster” for their homework. They just don’t get it, and nor do I. Posters take my kids about three hours to do, with an awful lot of agonising and frustration, and I completely fail to see the point. Why treat kids as if they’re five years old? Why not give them a chance to use - or increase – their knowledge instead? Why penalise them for not being any good at Art?

I could understand it if teachers were asking them to do wall charts. Doing a wall chart - packed with useful information, hopefully laid out in a nice clear format - would challenge students to come up with a lot of information, to select the most important parts, and present it all attractively in an easy-to-digest format.

But no. Teachers like posters. WHY???????



And "colouring in"? What’s that about?

I understand that Reception kids (aged 5) are made to do “colouring in” as practice for their fine motor skills, ready for learning to write. But why do secondary school students still have to do it?

My youngest has just started secondary school, and for his Geography homework over the weekend he had to answer various questions about where things were on a map; label various rivers and towns on a map; colour in the map.

The first two, fine. It gave him practice at using an Atlas, and the index therein; it made him think about placing the information correctly on the map, and fitting it all in neatly; perhaps he's even learnt something about his home area. But the colouring in?

I could understand it if the teacher had specified something like “mark the hill ranges and colour them in a different shade” or something. Or "draw in XXX reservoir and colour it blue."

But no. Teachers just want “colouring in”. WHY???????

My son’s view? “Just for a week, I thought I was at secondary school. Now I feel like I’m back in the Infants.”

I’ve come to the conclusion that most teachers – with the blessed exception of Science and Maths teachers – are Arty types who actually think that drawing and colouring-in are fun. *shudders*

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This post started life as a fic rec, so I’ll do that bit first:

Round And Round by janszy is a wonderful story of what happened to Gene after the final scene of Ashes to Ashes (spoilers, obviously). It’s extremely well written and although I hadn’t seen the author’s work before, it was immediately plain that she was an experienced writer. Do go and read it – it’s masterful, truly.

So that brings me on to the next bit – a comm rec. I know a lot of people have moved on from Life on Mars by now, and by no means everyone stuck it out to the end of Ashes, the early stages of series one being what they were, but if you want to write LOM-fic where it is known whether Sam is mad, in a coma or back in time, or Ashes fic where Sam and Annie are mentioned, there is only one comm – as far as I know – that you can post it to. That comm is ashes2life.

Anyone who has spent any time at The Railway Arms, lifein1973 or a2ashes, will know that what might have been seen as the captive audience for A2A – the LOM fans – were by no means unanimous in their verdict on the new show, and that the Gene/Alex fans who bought into series one of Ashes were in some cases quite visceral in their hatred of Sam.

So if you’d like to discuss Sam without some Galexer telling you that the very mention of his name is insulting to Alex, or you want to talk about Ashes without someone who’s only seen two episodes complaining that it’s badly acted (oh please - 2.07? 3.08?) , do it at ashes2life!

Also, if you want to write an Ashes fic where Gene/Alex is not inevitable and OTP – one where Gene actually remembers Sam, for example; or a LOM-fic which alludes to the nature of the universe as defined by Ashes to Ashes; or a fic where Alex and Maya meet (oh, somebody please write that!); you might be wanting a comm to post it in, and that comm is ashes2life.

Set up and maintained by lozenger8, the comm is there for all the good stuff that would get flamed or deleted at the series-specific comms.

(By the way, in my personal and humble opinion, it’s best not to worry too much about the - to me at least - intimidatingly intellectual flavour of the user-info page. You don't have to write brilliant meta to qualify, although it would be great if someone did. While fanfic is the very last thing mentioned in the community profile, it is definitely allowed and welcome!)

To sum up: if you’ve seen both shows and are happy to buy in, occasionally at least, to the idea that LOM and Ashes both take place in the same universe, ashes2life is the place to go.

My sons' school has recently set up an online payments system, which sounds cool. I've never been happy about sending them off to school with pockets full of money, and there was a memorable day when I shelled out something like £200 hard cash in the course of five minutes because two school trips both came up for payment on the same day.

Anyway, I got an email this morning asking me to sign a permission form and pay £8 for a "House Activities" enrichment day at my sons' school. They're all in the same House, but the letter does NOT make it clear whether the £8 requested is for all three boys, or if not, which ONE the letter refers to! I hope it will be clearer online.


So, it’s currently 12:18 and I’m about to email them back the permission form. But it says “I have already paid online”, so I have to do that first.

And before I can pay online I need to check the state of the bank account.

( Cut for length )

It’s now 13:43 and I’ve finally paid for Son One's Duke of Edinburgh expedition. Throughout all of that I never once saw the £8 I’m being asked to pay for the enrichment day, and I’m certainly not going looking right again now. I need a rest!

It used to be so simple - you got a pen and scribbled your signature on the bottom of a dirty crumpled letter from the bottom of their school bag. Then you thrust some notes into their hand and said "Here, give that in. And don't lose it else you won't be going."

Total time, two minutes.

Providing neither of us had lost the bit of paper AND I had some cash to hand, which to be fair was quite rare.

But even so.

Middle son is off to Normandy today on a school trip. Given the weather forecasts, I was a little surprised at midnight last night to discover that the Port of Dover website hadn’t been updated since about 4pm.

I was even more surprised to find out at 6-00 this morning that it still hadn’t been updated. They were still telling me that “here in Dover it’s lovely and mild” or some such tosspot uselessness.

In fact the port website was updated just as I was going out, at 8:10 this morning:

“Here in Dover today, sea conditions in the Channel are rough, with a south-westerly gale, force 8, and the visibility is moderate to good.

“All sailings from the Eastern Docks with P&O Ferries and SeaFrance to Calais, Norfolkline to Dunkerque and LD Lines to Boulogne are currently running normally with space available, although delays are expected due to the adverse weather conditions.”

Nothing about how to find out about these adverse weather conditions.


When I got back from the school run at 8-45, I tried P&O’s own website, but it doesn’t seem to have occurred to them that people might want to find out if the ferries are actually running, and I couldn’t find anything at all useful. The “latest sailing updates” was last updated at 6am. These people seem to have an extraordinarily relaxed attitude to the concept of “latest”.

So I went back to the Port of Dover, where I found this:

“Passengers can get in touch with ferry operators using the following numbers:”

I had my breakfast and drank tea till I thought my blood pressure could take it, and I rang them. The first thing I got told was

“We are currently experiencing high call volumes.” Yeah, that would be because it’s very windy and your website is arsing useless.

“You will have to wait two minutes. Why not visit our website?” Because it’s arsing useless, that’s why.

Two minutes later: “You will have to wait two minutes. Don’t forget you can find out all about our services...online”

Oh yeah? It’s now 11:20 and the “latest sailing update” has still not been updated since 6am. Did I mention your website is arsing useless?

Two minutes later: “You will have to wait at least two minutes. We work harder to create a travel experience that you’ll remember for the right reasons.”

Bollocks. It’s 11:24 and I’m still waiting.


I finally got to speak to someone at 11:25 - She’s telling me there are delays of about twenty minutes as far as she knows, but the latest information she has was sent at 08:50 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! She will ... go and ask someone. And this is supposed to be the information line?

So I wait. And wait. And listen to some psychopath’s choice of “soothing waiting music”. It’s fucking terrible. I can’t believe someone has selected this music for customers of a ferry company to listen to: It starts out reasonably enough, with

“Somewhere beyond the sea
Somewhere waitin’ for me
My lover stands on golden sands
And watches the ships that go sailin’.”

Which is fine, but it ends with :

“Happy we'll be beyond the sea
And never again I'll go sailing.

No more sailing…
So long sailing …
Bye, bye sailing... ”

Unreal.

So she eventually comes back and now she’s telling me there is a thirty minute delay, which she has got from some email somewhere. She has no live information and when I complained about that, she said it’s because I’ve been put through to the booking department! (I specifically rejected the “new booking” and “existing booking” options and went for the remaining option which was “all other”). I couldn’t get any sense out of her about who I’m supposed to ring about live running - I’m not entirely sure she understood the concept.

I eventually got out of her that the website is updated ONCE EVERY FOUR HOURS. I pointed out to her that I had waited - ON AN 0870 NUMBER - for over ten minutes, and that if they could actually be arsed to put some information on their website they would probably get rid of half of those calls. I told her all it needs is one sentence updating every twenty minutes, and that some companies actually use their websites to communicate with - hello? - their customers.

Not entirely sure she grasped that one, either. I just could not get any sense out of her about what number I’m supposed to ring for live information.

Look, it’s quite simple: that’s my son out there, OK, thirteen years old, first time abroad, in the middle - presumably - of the fucking English Channel in a force 8 south-westerly, and I don’t think it’s completely unreasonable to want to know if the ferry has (a) sailed and (b) arrived safely. How hard can it be?

Yes, I know it's the World Cup and all, but seriously?

My two older boys go to "this is a Grammar School, you know - if he can't keep up with all his homework you should be asking yourself whether this is really the right place for him". So, an institution dedicated to Education and Taking Things Seriously for those of an academic turn of mind.

So what have they done?

"A number of students have made representations to me ... we have rearranged the school day as follows..."

On Wednesday they're starting the day ten minutes early, shortening registration, lunch and LAST LESSON by fifteen minutes each, so the staff boys can get out at 2pm instead of 3-25.

The Primary School my youngest goes to has taken the opposite tack, presumably to cut down on the number of kids roaming unattended round the village, and they're screening the match in school, with a small charge to cover the half-time burgers they're apparently giving out to everyone.

I've worked for bosses (men, obviously) who were utterly scathing about women taking half-days for kids' school plays and the like, but thought it perfectly in order to rearrange important meetings so that the men could leave early to catch a football match. Without taking annual leave, naturally.

Ye Gods. We did actually watch about twenty minutes of England v USA, but having autism issues in the family meant that we simply couldn't cope with the vuvuzelas any longer than that.

I read somewhere that in this country there are actually more people interested in Family History than in football, but I feel it may be a long time before we get the latest from the National Archives on the News every night.

Well, we managed almost ten minutes before the forum went down. And the responses tonight are quite different. Very short posts, everyone stunned and speechless. I certainly am.

( Cut for Ashes 3.08 Spoilers )

I'm assuming at this point that Gordon Brown chose to resign at this particular moment purely to stitch up David Cameron in the middle of his final discussions with Nick Clegg - because he now has to interrupt those meetings to go to the Palace. Just my interpretation.

With Ashes to Ashes starting this Friday, I thought it might be a good idea to catch up a bit on previous episodes. No way was I going back to series one, so I watched the first episode of series two yesterday, and now I'm halfway through the second one.

And I'm bored.

It's just not pulling me in, although I think I did quite enjoy this episode the first time. Once you know what's going to happen there's nothing else, whereas with Life on Mars it seems there's always something else, something you didn't notice the first time, or the next, or the next. And while there's absolutely nothing about John Simm that should push my buttons, I can't help it - the moment he walks on screen (or indeed, stage), I'm all sharp intake of breath and "shit, he's gorgeous".

Yesterday's (2.01) was quite good. I enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed looking at, and listening to, Gene when he said "There should be a notice up at all the train stations in the North. The streets of London are paved with shit." Looking gorgeous, sounding ditto. Full of depth and complexity, hint of grief, just the way I like him.

But today's... Ack, I just can't get into it. There's just too much Alex and I keep on looking at her blank pretty face filling the screen and thinking "You know, I don't care. Couldn't care less whether you ever get home. You don't interest or attract me in any way, shape or form".

I've lost all interest in 'the mystery', the roses, the mysterious stranger, the Masons subplot. And I'm finding myself not even caring about Gene so much, and that really makes me angry. It's just all so shallow, so stylised, so cold and trivial and empty.

To be honest, I was glad when the phone went and I had to switch it off.

Comments, anyone?

P.S. This non-spoilery review of 3.01 has me very excited, all the same.

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First off, please look at my shiny new icon! It's much more fun than banking. Note that the words are a direct quote, and the picture is not manipped in any way. I adore Green Day - they're sexy as hell, the lyrics are intelligent, the music is fantastic, and they slash themselves all the time.

And now back to the banking.


( A short rant on British banks )

Not quite as good as last week, but it definitely got better throughout the hour. Just some scrappy notes jotted down as we went through. I don’t do clever analysis, unfortunately.

( Contains_Spoilers )