From 18th November to 2nd December I am going to be living on the food poverty line by spending only £1 a day on food. This figure is the UK adjusted equivalent of the poverty line, which leaves very little leeway, but it can totally be done, and possibly even healthily. Of course if I was doing it for longer and had to include fuel bills and housing I'd be screwed, but this in itself should be interesting.

I can't eat anything given to me by friends. I can gather wild food, though at this time of year that will be minimal. I am not trying to be vegetarian, but at the moment the only meat on the shopping list is a pack of Lidl cooking bacon, cos meat just costs too much for daily use.

One exception will be coffee, because it seems stupid to make a point about poverty by buying non-fair trade. What I will do instead is find the cheapest cheap coffee and take the cost of that off of my budget, then I'll weigh out that much of fair trade coffee and use that. Going without coffee is not an option.

My current shopping list is standing at £14.01 and doesn't include bread, anything sweet, eggs or any fruit. I have margerine down instead of cooking oil cos it looks like I can't afford both. No spuds, oddly, but I do have rice and pasta - I will post the list later if people are interested, but it's going to be refinded as I look in places other than Tesco value foods.

There will also be an opportunity to sponsor me by donating to Village Reach. Let me know if you're interested in that.

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In spite of continued stress over my job and everyone else's in the department, and the fact that even if I get the post, it will be hellish dealing with the reorganisation. In spite of my stomach apparently trying to kill me and my knee clearly bearing a serious grudge...

In spite of this there are good things. Many good things - so good that the calender is starting to look full and some of my goals are in danger of achievement

Driving - I had my first driving refreshed lesson and I didn't suck! In fact I enjoyed it, and the instructor said I wasn't a bad driver. I have four more hours to go and then will join City Car Club

Fitness - I have been accepted for Healthy Active Minds (otherwise known as being prescribed gym membership) and have my induction on Friday.

Holidays - I have booked annual leave for the two holidays mum is paying for (Moselle in September/October and Douro next April/May). Also got leave booked for BiCon and a long weekend at the end of May which is my Royal Wedding TOIL

I went to tea with crafters Thursday, wandered round stalls in the Grassmarket, met Jane and Tara in the Farmer's market and generally had fun seeing people who are not Jon. I am also getting on really well with Jon.

Beltane rocked, I had a great time, followed Counterpoint round the hill and got a front seat at the stage. I now feel much more confident that I can go to stuff alone and people I met seemed pleased to see me.

I did a metric fuckton of house work yesterday - my home is no longer reminiscent of Tracey Emin's bed.

I am wearing a sexy top :-)

At the moment my schedule looks like:Today: finish job applications, email it last thing tonight, (take data projector home from work for Wednesday)
Tomorrow: Go to work, don't kill anyone or let the bastards grind me down, go for a walk on the river after work (or not, since I'd had no sleep)
Wednesday 4th: Up early to go to Glasgow for training - remember data projector. QNI
Thursday 5th: Working from home, VOTE, go to the library, pick up prescription, dinner with Sandy, Go to the count?
Friday 6th: Driving lesson 9.30, HAM induction 11.30 at Dalry pool, buy and organise stuff for Pride stall
Saturday 7th: Pride Scotia, I have a BiCon stall in the Omni centre
Sunday 8th: Nice quiet day with a walk in it
Monday 9th: Administrator interviews (which I'm not going for) try not to go mad at work
Tuesday 10 May   - Events Co-ordinator interview 1.30 - try not to go mad
Wednesday 11 May   -  Events Officer interview 1.30 - try not to go mad
Thursday 12 May - try to get cleared to work from home
Friday 13th - GP appointment, driving lesson
Saturday 14th - free
Sunday 15th - free
Mon 16 - alleged work deadline
Tue 17 - next 'consultation meeting'
Wednesday 18th - in Listening skills training all day
Friday 20th - go to Leicester
Saturday 21 - Big Bi Fun Day
Sunday 22 - back from Leicester
Mon/Tue 23/24  - work consultation results
Wednesday 25 - Alex leaving do
Monday 30 May - off work
Wednesday 1 June - Writer's Bloc
Sunday 5 June - knitting High Tea
Friday 5 August: Living Happily one day course
Friday 26 August - Migratory waders one day course

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I really do need to take my social life in hand. Now that I am a good deal cheerier, and spring is here, and the house is clean(ish) and I am on track with my eating. <I would just like a moment to be pleased that I've lost 6.2 kilos on purpose - that's like a stone! (only another , er, seven, to go, but I would definitely be pleased with much less than that) Seeing other human beings would seem like a plan though. Are there any out there who would like to see me and do things? Anyone? This entry was originally posted at http://purplerabbits.dreamwidth.org/605121.html. You can comment there using OpenID.

People who know me know that I really really like making lists, so just to show why I want to do the compact, and for my own records, here is an almost certainly incomplete list of stuff I bought new in 2010( Big list )


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The Wraeththu Series and Other Grumbles
First Published in Bifrost # 28, October 1993

Science fiction fans often declare the merits of their genre using for example its famous tolerance and diversity. SF writers seem to have fewer problems with sexuality than lesser mortals, and so you are more likely to find bisexual characters there than anywhere outside the Gay Times book list.

This may be so, but most authors limit bisexuality to one or the other gender. Storm Constantine, Anne Rice, Robert Heinlein, Tom Robbins, Ursula leGuin and Anne McCaffery are all, I suspect, straight.[1] You can tell by the fact that no bisexual or gay characters of their own gender ever appear. I shouldn't be assuming this of course, Mary Renault was a dyke who wrote about gay men all her life[2], but there's something going on here.

All Tom Robbins' and many of Heinlein's heroines express an interest in other women[3], which at first you might put down to the simple voyeurism that straight men often seem to go for. But some of their characters are actually very good[4], and the phenomenon is not limited to men. Anne Rice's vampires are also bisexual, but she sticks with the males for love interest. Ursula leGuin says everyone is bisexual in The Dispossessed, but only one gay character appears, and he's a bit sad. [4]

Anne McCaffrey is a bit of a fag hag, and her gay characters reflect this, being mostly stereotypical queens, throwing tantrums and wanting the heroine (McCaffrey?) to sort out their love lives and in one story have their babies. She steers clear of actual sex[5]. So for instance the Pern books contain no steamy gay scenes of dragon induced passion in spite of around 90% of dragon riders being male.

Storm Constantine, on the other hand, seems to advocate sex with men as a cure for all ills. Sex magick features in all the books - dominating Hermetech - but it's only ever male-female or male-male. There are bisexual men in Hermetech and bisexual male vampires in Burying the Shadow, but most turn out to be mainly gay and all the young men in the Wraeththu series turn into perfectly formed androgynous beings with extraordinary genitals at an early stage in proceedings.

I was particularly disappointed in the Wraeththu, as I had been told they were a bisexual must. But this turned out to be the most mysogynistic book by a woman I've ever read. Wraeththu can't have sex with humans without killing them (their semen is poisonous, I guess they never heard of condoms), and women are inexplicably incapable of partaking of the mutation that turns a man into a wraeththu. So where does this leave the women? Stuck with a rapidly dying out and violent male population and yet with seemingly no desire to do it with each other whatsoever. Odd, that.

OK, so we do get a belated and different mutation in the very last part of the last book that can grant women the advantages of long life and perfect skin, but even then it's only for a tiny percentage of them, and they don't get the enviable power of reproducing as easily as dropping an egg - literally. This seems more than unfair after all the time women have been having to do it the hard way. I do like the idea of children growing up at four times normal speed, thus avoiding nappies and screaming. But they don't breast feed, which conveniently makes wraeththu like slightly nicer young men in appearance. It's a shame, because it could have been a good idea; but I'm sorry Storm, perfect skin or no, I'm just not interested in androgynes without tits. [6]

* The Wraeththu trilogy is: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirits, The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, The Fulfillments of Fate and Desire. [7]

Now for the 21st Century bit.

[1] Wow, I was arrogant - assigning sexualities to authors without even having an internet to check my facts with (not that I've found anything to say I was actually wrong).

[2] Mary Renault did in fact have some lesbian characters, but they are very much outnumbered by her predominantly gay heroes

[3] I feel I should do penance for mentioning Robbins and Heinlein in the same sentence, but I'm not going to. It could also be argued that Robbins isn't science fiction. Tough.

[4] I didn't at the time mention The Left Hand of Darkness, even though every BiCon SF workshop went on about it at length. This is because I felt it was very much about gender and not sexuality. The Gethenians are hermaphrodites who spend the majority of their time asexual, and their sexuality is not much explored in the book. When it is mentioned it seems that actual sex consisted of a set of male genitals and a set of female genitals, which is a pity. (The book does what it was trying to do with gender rather imperfectly as well, and leGuin has apologised for that, but I still love it).

Two years after this article (though it took me longer to find it) leGuin wrote Coming of Age in Karhide. A beautiful, joyous look at Gethenian sex with all its complication. It is published in The Birthday of The World and other stories, and I can't recommend it enough. Of all the authors I mention in the article leGuin has learned and listened, not least to her own daughter.

[5] I meant gay sex - there is plenty of heterosexual dragon induced passion

[6] This statement about my personal tastes may not be strictly true :-)

[7] There is now more Wraeththu. I have no idea whether it is any good or not.


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Those interested in STV and/or concerned about the BNP getting seats could do worse than to look at the actual results for the Scottish Parliament over the last three elections. I don't know what conclusions to draw from this. There is certainly a historic tendencies for parties like the Scottish Socialists to blow themselves out of the water, and smaller party's fortunes can change drastically, but I'm not alarmed by the kinds of result we get, overall, certainly not as alarmed as I am by calculations done on percentages across the whole country alone...

We've also had two coalition and one minority government - as someone who works in the voluntary sector and is somewhat dependent on budgets getting passed, I definitely prefer the former

1999
Labour - 56
SNP - 35
Conservative - 18 (all list seats, no constituency seats)
Liberal Democrats - 17
Green - 1
Scottish Socialists - 1
Independent - 1 (ex Labour)

2003
Labour - 50 (down 6)
SNP - 27 (down 7)
Conservative - 18
Liberal Democrats - 17
Green - 7 (up 6)
Scottish Socialists - 6 (up 5)
Independent - 3 (one ex-Labour, one ex-SNP and one on an anti NHS cuts ticket)
Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party - 1

2007
SNP - 47
Labour - 46
Conservative - 17
Liberal Democrats - 16
Green - 2
Independent - 1 (ex SNP)

To distract me from the election and earache and deafness, here is the Algarve bird list. Do let me know if you think anything is mislabelled etc. There will be even more photos later, but I'm slightly drowning in them...

New to Me
1.Penduline tit (at Mertola, so not technically the Algarve)
2.Sardinian warbler
3.Fan tailed warbler, also known as the Zitting Cisticola, which is just an awesome name
4.Melodious warbler
5.Redstart
6.Serin
7.Corn bunting (unless is was some other bunting...)
8.Yellow wagtail (in Portugal they have blue heads, but I'm pretty sure that's what it is...)
9.Crested lark
10.Woodchat shrike
11.Spotless starling
12.Blue rock thrush (also at Mertola)
13.Azure winged magpie
14.Bee-eater
15.Hoopoe
16.Quail
17.Kentish plover
18.Black winged stilt, many many stilts
19.Curlew sandpiper
20.Whimbrel
21.Little stint
22.Cattle egret
23.Purple heron
24.White stork
25.Greater flamingo
26.Caspian tern
27. Muscovy duck
28.Yellow legged gull
29.Lesser kestrel
30.Great bustard
31.Pallid swift

Seen before
32.Great tit
33.Blackcap
34.Willow warbler
35.Garden warbler
36.Swallow
37.House martin
38.Sand martin
39.House sparrow
40.Greenfinch
41.Goldfinch
42.Chaffinch
43.Linnet
44.Grey wagtail
45.Blackbird
46.Magpie
47.Jay
48.Jackdaw
49.Swift
50.Collared dove
51.Feral pigeon
52.Red legged partridge
53.Dunlin (Forever after known to my mum as Dunhills)
54.Sanderling
55.Ringed Plover
56.Sandpiper
57.Turnstone
58.Redshank
59.Spotted redshank
60.Greenshank
61.Bar-tailed godwit
62.Avocet - very pretty birds
63.Oystercatcher
64.Little egret
65.Cormorant
66.Moorhen
67.Little Grebe
68.Mallard
69.Gadwell
70.Lesser black backed gull
71.Great black backed gull
72.Black headed gull
73.Little tern
74.Sandwich tern
75.Sparrowhawk
76.Buzzard

I went out the house for the first time since new year today. So my bird list for the year so far consists of: feral pigeon, wood pigeon, coot, moorhen, mute swan, mallard, black headed gull, carrion crow, magpie, robin, fieldfare, redwing, blackbird, house sparrow, dunnock, blue tit, great tit and long tailed tit. Also someone using skis as a serious form of locomotion. I thought I was bored of snow, but I'm not.

Your Xmas cards from me...

My Paris photos are up. I made them into a set, largely for my mum, but there are some I'm particularly pleased with including a bunch of gargoyles...


and this

Until today I thought the title of Fingersmith was a reference to hot girl on girl action.

Now I feel that it should be...

Today things that I would quite like to know for my writing include:

What resources do you need to have access to to prepare a tetanus vaccine?

If you start with a population of people who've been vaccinated against common diseases, and no-one is sick, are there infectious diseases people would get anyway (like that live in soil, water, animals or latent in people)?

When civilisations start having money, how does initial distribution happen? How might this happen on a small scale?

Can modern sheep survive in the hills by themselves if no-one sheers them?

Is there anywhere online I can access a year's worth of weather records for Edinburgh?

How hard is it to make synthetic rubber?

How old does a sugar maple have to be before you can tap it?

This is certainly proving interesting...

As ever at this time of year, I am thankful that I do not live in the United States. However this year I am also thankful that I don't have to be quite so thankful about that fact as I was this time last year. In addition I am thankful to Matt for saving my bacon last night, and to Jon for being in my house while my hopefully lovely floor goes down. Oh and socialised health care - as I head off to a free appointment with my GP for treatment of a pre-existing condition, I can't recomend it enough.

"For thousands of years goats have performed something called a goaty dance this is where they stand upright and prance around chanting "MEEEEEEEEEEEEHH!!""

Feel free to correct, though I quite like it the way it is :-)

Is it just me or was the poppy hysteria much worse this year? Can anyone think of why that might be? Or am I being a kneejerk leftie when I'm dismayed by stories like this, this and this?

I am going to get my mum a calendar with my pictures in it for next year, and I'm trying to choose a picture for each month and one for the cover. I'm looking for things that will work at a big print size, with something vaguely seasonal about them, and/or with outdoors/wildlife/flowers etc. So I'm asking you guys for input. If you can stand it or have the time, could you head over to my Flickr and tell me which are my best shots? And if you have a choice of month they could go with that would be cool too?

Flattery is always welcome, but I do want honest answers cos I don't want to get this thing printed and have it come out rubbish...

Your quiz for today is brought to you by me being not at work and having a headcold so am trying to write instead of going out.

1. Do you remember those pictures that were going round a while back of an industrial place in the US that had been abandoned by people and over run by nature? Can you point me at them?
2. If all people just vanished tomorrow, what things would go seriously wrong (hint, it would not be nuclear power, well not in the UK, probably)
3. What things would still be good to eat/use after 28 years? I know honey would, cos they ate some after they opened a pyramid and didn't die. And some wines and spirits would be OK if not better. Anything else? WHat about medicines, does anyone know if any of them would still be good to use?
4. What would you most miss about your life if you had to return to a pre-industrial lifestyle (excluding any medical issues which would kill you, cos then you would be not there to miss it...)

Silly answers are also welcome :-)

I wanted to talk about the 10:10 thing, but it seems a bit done to death already, to be honest. What I can say is that a) any news articles done in the form of a list is likely to be cheap ill-thought out journalism and easy to take pot shots at and b) the sight of well-meaning Guardian readers each defending their own carbon footprint while happily commenting on each others' is getting old really quickly [1].

Yes, we need more big changes, but this does not mean we need fewer little ones, it just means that the little ones will be more possible, because the infrastructure will be there to support them. So if you've just found the time to go down the list and tick off everything you 'can't' do for various unarguable reasons, either think of something you *can* do, or do some campaigning about the larger issues. Don't moan to your mates about why you can't do recycling, moan to the council. Or call a meeting at work about *their* carbon footprint. Or even write a well reasoned and public article about what big changes need to happen.  Because the planet, annoyingly enough, doesn't care whether or not you personally are in the right.

I remember that the last time I ranted about something similar I made the point of contacting the council about getting recycling facilities on my street. Which there now are (well, just round the corner, and it doesn't do glass, but still). I'm not naive enough to think it was me wot dun it by myself, but I'm pleased I did.

[1] And, yes, there are things on the list which I either can't do or which would be really expensive or which I doubt the carbon efficiency of, and I'm not saying you're all wrong about everything on your lists, either.

I made it to the yarn shop today and got some nice 50% merino in fuschia for one of the Big Girls Knits I fancy (and at about a quarter of the price of the recommended yarn it's still more that I woul pay for a ready made sweater). I also discovered that they don't do double pointed 3.25mm any more, which is an arse cos I have a body done in that and need to make the sleeves. Does anyone have any they can lend me, or shall I adapt the pattern to straight needles?

At least I have the needles for the body of the fuschia pattern so I can start on that and, er, worry about the sleeves later (that one wants 40cm circulars for the sleeves, which the shop also doesn't do.)

Once day I will have a whole garment. Probably.

This article isn't just yet another new technolies are driving us crazy piece - it makes a lot of sense about the difference between wanting and getting and compulsive behaviours. Also I will never torture a cat with a laser pointer again...

The powerful and mysterious brain circuitry that makes us love Google, Twitter, and texting.

Seeking. You can't stop doing it. Sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information. We are so insatiably curious that we gather data even if it gets us in trouble...

Wot I saw on my holidays: ( long list with links to picatures )
This included 66 bird species on the day we went to Minsmere, which is a personal best by a long way.

Back at work? Big pile of mail? Filling come out on a bacon sandwich? Then you are me and I claim my GBP5.

So cheer your self up with a baaaby red squiggle




Also Peacock butterflies are totally goth underneath

Proper bird post to follow...

Your insect of the day - If anyone can identify this even a bit I'd like to know...

A present for lovelybug and anyone else that likes that sort of thing ( under a cut for those that don't like our six legged pals )

Saturday was apparently invasive species day. In one short stretch of the Water of Leith by Stockbridge I saw Himalayan Balsam (lots), Rhodedendron, Fuschia, some kind of pampas grass (maybe not actually invasive, but certainly self seeded) and A family of six or seven mink kits with their mum. They were being very cute and squeaky and trying to persuade me that they wren't deadly invasive things at all...



Wuff! But Oh Noes! But Wuff!

Today's bee is unidentified so far. It seems to have to much black to be a common carder. Perhaps it is a field cuckoo bumble bee - cos you get cuckoo bumble bees, which is also a cool fact...

Here is your bee of the day - not quite as brilliant as Monday's bee, but A DIFFERENT KIND OF BEE. Apparently ordinary human beings can tell the idfference between kinds of bee - who'd have thought it?




This is a common carder bumble bee, wot is different from the buff tailed bumble bee of yesterday.

I have found out something about Beltane people that would have made me incandescently angry a month ago, and you know what? I was really really angry for about half an hour and now I just can't be arsed. I think this is an improvement.

Meanwhile, if you have sometyhing you need distracting from - here is your Monday morning bee - Beeee!



Did I mention recently that I love my macro?

I went puffin hunting yesterday evening and found many puffings even though it was too choppy to get to Inchkeith. This meant it was also too choppy to get many good pictures, or indeed focus the binoculars easily, but I did get a reasonable good shot of a fulmar. I also saw a distant but verifiable Manx Shearwater, which in Latin is puffinus puffinus, so that's kinda like extra puffins :-) Plus it brings my (mid)life list to 120. And photographically I now have a set of 85 bird species on flickr, which isn't bad for my camera...

I am fighting the urge to turn my bird list into a database. There may be no hope for me.
But puffins!

I am going to buy a new 20" iMac - is there anything I should definitely get as extra? Why?

Is there any software I should definitely get (either free or obtainable)?

What's a good optical three button wheeled mouse that's not a mighty mouse?

Does anyone want a mighty mouse?

Zoo pictures are now up on Flickr including some very small penguins and a pile of lemurs...

I managed to go out with camera but no binoculars today and managed to see:
Swifts (yay swifts are back!) and at least one house martin
Blackbirds, Song thrush
Blue tit
Chaffinch, goldfinch
Dunnock
House sparrow
Jackdaw, carrion crow and magpie
Starlings
Feral pigeons, wood pigeons, and my first ever collared dove seen in Edinburgh
Mallard
Mute swan
Moorhen
Black-headed gull, lesser black backed gull

Which must mean that I'm better at seeing things with my eyes

I am loving Stuart's Beltane pictures, including the excellent set of the Bower, which starts here, in which I think we look rather splendid...

That was my best ever Beltane as a performer. And the finance officer in me is over the moon about the numbers. Just for once I'd like to clearly state that everything is absolutely perfect. Therefore I declare that anything that is not perfect can fuck right off until at least tomorrow :-)

I have been out finding spring...



I love my macro.

Here is a totally awesome timetraveller cheatsheet - available as a shirt or a poster.


What would you put on yours?

I know it's unlikely, but... do any of you in striking distance of Edinburgh have a black or dark coloured cloak that you would be prepared to lend to one of my Bower Keepers. Or do you have 2-3m of heavy-ish fabric that could be turned into one? (Including old woollen blankets, curtains etc...)

They'd be very grateful and considerably warmer if we can sort something out...

Today I decided I had to get out looking for brids and prepared for a bread-and-butter day after the excitement of last weekend. Idid a reasonable walk round Colinton Dell and saw:

Blue tit, great tit, long tailed tit
Robin, blackbird
Starling
Wren
Dunnock
Carrion crow, jackdaw, magpie
Wood pigeon, feral pigeon
Black headed gull, herring gull
Mallard, gooseander (both of whom helped me dispose of half a loaf of homemade bread)

My first dipper of the year
And squrrels and a bunny and - roe deer! - which I have never seen in Edinburgh before. So yay!

Memetastic!

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me.

My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

* I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

* What I create will be with you in mind.

* It'll be done sometime this year (2009)

* You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be something written, some physical thing made, could be anything at all, but I will make it myself. It's entirely my choice what it is. No quibbles, no refunds.

* I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch?

Oh, the catch is that you put this in your journal as well. If you don't.. You don't get anything.

P.S. Being me the thing is likely to be either knitting, jewellery or pickle, but you never know...

P.P.S. You are allowed to ask for stuff if you've already posted the meme, or if you've asked for stuff from other people - in fact I'd like that cos I like making stuff...

So, going for long walks, getting up early, eating nice food in good company and seeing many birds and places I haven't been before helps decrease depression - who knew :-) I bet it didn't do any harm that I drank less than usual and watched less TV, too (though Being Human was OK.)

Some pictures are on Flickr - I particularly like the reflected black-headed gulls and the cooperative goldeneye. Though I also seem to be breaking into industrial art with Longannet power station and Grangemouth...