The winner of the ham battle is you!

I think my favourite thing about the new Star Trek movies is how canonically shit Starfleet is.

( Spoilers for Star Trek: INTO DORKNESS )

My analyst BFF: Hello! Is the magazine all right? Sorry I'm late, I was having my eyes checked.
Me: No problem! The mag's good - how are your eyes?
Analyst BFF: They're good. Also, I can now see one hour into the future.

Pete Brown makes an interesting assertion in Shakespeare's Local, which I'm reading at the moment, and I'm curious what the internet thinks about it. (I'm not telling you what he thinks it is.)

OK, what RSS reading service is everyone going to start using instead of Google Reader, now that it's shutting down in a few months?

What have you just finished reading? / What are you reading now?
I'm plugging away at A Place of Greater Safety, which is still just delicious. As I said when I mentioned it the first time, I was worried my sketchy knowledge of the details of the French Revolution would prevent me from understanding what was going on, but I'm now agreeing with the commenters who said it actually helps to not have a fixed idea of who the characters are. Also, I don't have any historical spoilers (except for big ones, like, you guys, I don't think Marie Antoinette is going to make it!), so when people die or do shocking things it's actually surprising.

What will you read next?
I think I'm going to reread The Ornament Of The World, a book about the relations between Muslims, Jews and Christians in southern Spain - particularly Cordoba - from 786-1605. I first read it in 2007, when I was planning a trip there, and I remember enjoying it, but not anything else about it. Which makes it perfect for a reread.

Orrrr I'll finally pick up A Year Of Biblical Womanhood, which I demanded Ewan get me for Christmas, although I think I'd feel a bit weird reading it on the Tube.

Things like this - the government raising the possibility of foreign nationals being denied access to benefits are also why I'm paranoid about being a permanent-resident-but-not-citizen. Even though I'm middle class and have a good history of getting jobs and if I ever need eg legal aid, I'll almost certainly be able to pay for it...it's just very clear that there are foreigners and there are British people and why don't we look for some more ways to make life shit for the first group.

ANYWAY. Happy Valentine's Day or something! I made some Plantagenet valentines on my lunch break yesterday and the internet seemed to like them, so here you are.

I am not sure how I feel about Ye Day Of Love Consumerism, but I do like jokes and I am making Ewan go to the pub with me after work (but, like, romantically), so maybe I am more of a sucker for it than I think I am!

Today is also my second Jewiversary, so that's another nice reason to go to the pub (romantically).

A Place Of Greater Safety: still good! For the record. I am on page 108 out of 865, according to my Kindle, and I'm looking forward to hitting the halfway point and feeling like I can have substantial thoughts around it.

Great excitement! On Friday my indefinite leave to remain card arrived! This means IN THEORY that I am officially un-kickoutable forever and ever amen.

"Oh, wow, it's all over, how exciting!" someone said at katstevens' birthday drinks in the pub last night.

HA HA HA, FOOLS! IT IS NEVER OVER.

There is still one step, which I don't have to do but I do want to do, and that is becoming a full citizen.

As long as I'm living and working in the UK, there aren't a lot of differences between indefinite leave to remain and citizenship – it would be different if I wanted to live and work somewhere else in the EU. The only material difference is that I can't vote now, and I could vote if I were a citizen. (There has been talk of non-citizens paying higher tax rates than citizens, but I don't think I would care unless it were a massive difference.)

Becoming a citizen also means a lot more ritual – there's a ceremony in the borough's town hall, we all get to swear fealty to the Queen and receive certificates from 'a local dignitary', it's terribly exciting.

Most importantly, even though I have effectively immigrated, I don't think I will feel safe and that it is actually DONE until I have a British passport and a nice local dignitary has said "Welcome to being One Of Us, newly British person!"

There have been so many upsetting and terrifying times when the rules have changed and it's felt like everything has been taken away, that I want to finish the process while I'm able to, before the rules can change again and, IDK, NO FOREIGN-BORN PEOPLE ARE EVER ALLOWED TO BE BRITISH. I know it's incredibly unlikely, but the past six years have kind of trained me to NEVER TRUST THE HOME OFFICE NOT TO BE DICKS and I'm having trouble going "No, it's OK, Kerry, you are here forever now! This card says so!" (WHAT IF THEY TAKE THE CARD AWAY!!).

Anyway, the way I finally got the card was a bit hilarious.

Ever since the first "whaaaaat, everything is all different now and it is suddenly nearly impossible for me to immigrate, can they do that (YES THEY CAN!)" UKBA rules change, around five years ago, I have intermittently followed a few immigration message boards. These are half people going "WHAT DOES THIS MEAN OH GOD" and half people calmly explaining things to frightened people. I think this is a good thing, particularly because the UKBA and Home Office have an intentional policy of not communicating clearly to potential immigrants to reduce the number of successful applications – not distorting or misrepresenting anything, just intentionally not telling people what's going on until it's nearly too late, and not spelling complicated things out or offering help in understanding them. So it's useful to have people talking to each other about the real repercussions of the opaque regulation changes the UKBA posts a few times a year.

My favourite is immigrationboards.com, which also has a helpful tradition of people posting their application timelines and the date they receive their visas. This means it's easy to see how things are going generally – "oh, they seem to be getting through the September applications now, so mine probably won't show up until they start working through the October ones". (Unsurprisingly, settlement applications take much longer than the other kinds.)

The boards also offer good advice I wouldn't have thought of on my own. When Ewan and I had our interview with Islington Council and submitted my application, the council suggested we'd probably hear back by early December (HA!). Three weeks ago, we still hadn't heard back, so I checked immigrationboards.com to see how things were going with other people's applications.

I found a secret way to get applications back within a reasonable time. This went:

Applicant contacts their MP

MP calls the UKBA's dedicated MP hotline (this...is a thing that exists) to check on application

Either MP gets in touch with applicant to say, "I found out your case is complicated for X and Y reasons, which is why it's taking so long"
OR

Approved visa magically arrives in applicant's post 1-3 weeks later.

So I wrote a brief, polite email to Mr Corbyn saying "Hello, I am a nice law-abiding young person, my application's been with the UKBA for ages, we were told we'd get it last month, if you have the time would you mind terribly finding out if there's anything wrong with it we need to correct?"

Mr Corbyn replied, "Hello nice law-abiding young person, I called the UKBA's dedicated MP hotline (SERIOUSLY THIS EXISTS) and they said there were no problems with it, just backlog – if you need to travel urgently because a family member's ill, or something, you can get in touch with me or them, and try to expedite it, but in my experience I wouldn't hold your breath about that one, so."

And then a week and a half later, my approved visa arrived! So, score one for people talking to each other about obstructive bureaucracy on the internet. Also, I'm really amused/impressed/distressed by the fact that this is apparently such an institutionalised part of the process for getting anything back on time. Individuals aren't even allowed to contact the UKBA to ask about our applications until six months have gone by and they're officially 'late' (seriously, they hang up on you), but if you go through this secret back way of getting your MP to do it, suddenly everything arrives right away. At least I didn't have to bribe anybody (I mean, after the £991 fee).

Anyway, back to citizenship – the main issue is that it costs £851 (and this will increase in April, although I don't know how much by), which is a lot of money to be spending on something I don't need need but will make me feel a lot better. And which I will be getting eventually, but, like, we did just drop £1k on the UKBA and maybe I should...not splash out on another big immigration expenditure right away? I REALLY WANT IT THOUGH. It is 90% over but I want it to be over over.

Today is the Wars of the Rosiest day!

I took the day off work and decided to go to St Albans, because it's 45 minutes from my flat and why not. I knew it was pretty Wars of the Rosey there but even then, I got some bonus!

I got to the cathedral just as the faily free guided tour was starting, which was lucky. It was very Historical Like, with several excellent odd cathedral art things.

For example, a gold image of "someone from the fifteenth century" on the floor, under an ugly purple 1980s rug.



"This is Anthony Grey," the tour guide said as she pulled back a corner of the carpet. "I don't know who he is, exactly." (She was an excellent tour guide. She knew a lot and when she didn't know, she looked at us with no embarrassment whatsoever and went, "Anyone know about this?")

"I think he was one of Elizabeth Woodville's brothers?" I said, even though I wasn't sure - I didn't think there was an Anthony Grey but if there was one from the 15th century who was important enough for a gold thing on the floor, duh, he was related to her.

"She had a lot of brothers," said an older lady in the tour, with a look like, "She would, wouldn't she."

I tried to sneakily look it up on my phone and then the battery died, but I think I'm right - Elizabeth Woodville's brother was named Anthony but he was a Woodville, of course, not a Grey. No wonder the guide was confused.

Anyway THEN, it turned out Humphrey Gloucester is BURIED inside St Albans Cathedral, because he was besties with the abbot of St Albans (I suppose after he rid the town of its persistent 'pilgrim grifter' problem). Even though it's under a metal mesh so you can't get at it, his BODY is still there and I took some really terrible pictures where you can't see it very well. (It's a big box draped in red cloth with a gold cross sewn on it. "Where did you say Duke Humphrey was?" I asked the guide after she mentioned him. "Oh, he's under a grate over there," she said, waving her hand.)



And THEN of course a few hours ago we all found out that the skeleton with scoliosis found in a car park in Leicester is almost certainly that of Richard III, which is REALLY EXCITING! (And also I do secretly wish he were getting a state funeral at Westminster Abbey, because WOULDN'T THAT BE GREAT, I WOULD SO GO.)

And now "Richard III" is the top trend on Twitter and everyone is suddenly interested in Plantagenets! Yes! Welcome to my world!

PS academics and R3 type people, this soliloquy is delightful.

Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter is probably the best chocolate bar out there, rivalled only by dark chocolate Bounty. On my way home I was feeling glum (dark! cold! still hate my job!) so I stopped into the corner store to buy one, and was confronted with a CHOICE!



I couldn't figure out what the difference was, so I figured the only sensible thing to do was to buy one of each, sample them, eat the nice one and give the less good one to Ewan.



The Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion was slightly darker than the Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter. I started to worry that the latter might just be a really old version that had been sitting in a box for four years, but they had sell-by dates within two months of each other, so I figured it was OK.

They both broke off easily along the fault lines. The interior of the Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter was clearly inferior to that of the Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion. The Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter was crumbly, pale and dry:



In contrast, the Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion was moist and rich. The peanut butter filling was a dark, appealing brown-sugar-buttery colour:



The Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion was also simply taller than the Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter:



It was only after I'd opened them that I thought to look on the packages for a clue about whether they'd been made in separate places. It turns out there was an obvious answer: the Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter is made in Poland and the Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion is made in Britain. I suspect some of the Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter's issues – its dryness and seeming stale – can be put down to its having been shipped across Europe.

The packaging also revealed some differences of composition. The Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter is 226 calories, compared with 260 calories for Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion. The former has 3.5g of protein, rather than 4.0g; 23.0g of carbs compared with 26.2g; and 13.2g fat versus 15.2g. This difference is likely because the Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter is overall 42g rather than a full 48g for Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion (this also accounts for the height difference).

The Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter has a Nestle Cocoa Plan logo on it, where the Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion has a Facebook logo. I'm not sure whether that means:

Nestle's Polish production unit uses ethical chocolate, and their British one doesn't

There is an EU requirement to put that kind of information on the wrapper, which isn't binding for Britain, and Nestle UK decided to use that wrapper real estate to push their social media presence instead

Nestle's marketing team thinks Polish consumers care about ethical food and British ones don't

Or something else entirely.

Anyway, the Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion tasted a little nicer, so I ate that one and left the Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter for Ewan.

If Kit Kat Chunky Peanut Butter were the only available of the two, I'd definitely still choose it over eg a Mars bar or even a Snickers. But there's no contest between the two versions: it's Kit Kat New Chunky Peanut Butter – Your Chunky Champion all the way.

What have you recently finished reading?
Mostly all the plays we did at Bardcamp: The Government Inspector (Gogol), The Revenger's Tragedy (...somebody), King Lear (the happy-ending Nahum Tate version), All's Well That Ends Well (ACTUAL SHAKESPEARE!!!), Women Beware Women (Middleton), The Duchess of Malfi (Webster), Becket (Anouilh) and Hamlet: The Panto (the_alchemist, atreic, mirabehn, borusa and self). I will probably post more about these later. It was great as always.

On the train over I read The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo on lizbee's recommendation, which was just delightful. It's a smart and funny novella about an Intrepid Girl Writer in London in the 1920s, which is also about colonialism and class. I very much enjoyed it.

What are you currently reading?
Diplomatic Anecdotage by Sir Roger Carrick. It's all right - there are some very funny bits, especially in Carrick's Soviet-era Bulgarian posting. I'm halfway through and Carrick is starting to be assigned to nicer postings – Paris, DC, Chicago – and as a consequence it's becoming very dull. I've enjoyed his writing about playing hide-and-seek with the secret police for fun one weekend and exasperatedly calling a plumber by complaining loudly near a wall he knew to be bugged. But the current chapter is a riveting read about the founding of the FCO real estate department in Croydon, and while it is interesting to hear about how things get done in the Foreign Service, I'm only halfway through and I don't think I'm up for another 180 pages of "How I hired an architect". I plan to skip ahead and see if there's anything good in the next few chapters, then quit.

What do you think you'll read next?
After I scooped up gazillions of £1-2 ebooks in the 12 Days of Christmas Kindle sale, I'm a little spoiled for choice; I'm tending towards How To Drink.

What are you currently reading?

Notes From a Small Island, the very famous travel book about Great Britain by Bill Bryson. It's about what I remembered. That is, it's deeply awful in places (Bryson likes to remind us how he really hates fat people every 50-60 pages, in case we’d forgotten) and is very frequently factually inaccurate, but it's also sweet and funny and warm. I first read it when I was 16 or 17, and now that I've actually lived here I get a lot more of the jokes (I understand what a "Milton Keynes" is now!).

The best and worst thing about Bryson's travel writing is how earnestly delighted he is with unfamiliar culture. Obviously enthusiasm is great and it's lovely when someone else is enthusiastic about something you love too. But sometimes he'll moan about picturesque towns being hatefully interrupted by modern buildings, and while I agree ugly buildings are tragic, he doesn't acknowledge that sometimes eg housing complexes are built because people LIVE in these places, they aren't just Ye Olde Theme Parks for wide-eyed non-locals to wander around in.

But aside from those aspects, it's a loving, funny book about Britishness and I am enjoying the reread.

What did you recently finish reading?

Last night I finished Soulless by Gail Carringer, the first in a six-book series. It was very fun but I don't think I'll read the rest. The romance was silly and jolly, the tone was a little uneven and there was some weird stuff going on with the social commentary.

Without too many spoilers, it's set in mid-Victorian London, and the plot is about the conflict between supernatural creatures (vampires, werewolves, the usual) and a kind of nationalist (racist) scientific movement that's into eugenics and is trying to Keep England English and kill all the supernatural creatures.

Just after the halfway point, the villain spells out his evil plan in a bit of dialogue that draws a pretty blatant parallel to historical anti-Semitism:

"We Englishmen have allowed vampires and werewolves to roam openly among us since King Henry's mandate without a clear understanding of what they really are. They are predators. For thousands of years, they fed upon us and attacked us. What they have given us in military knowledge has allowed us to build an empire, true, but at what cost?" He became impassioned, his tone the high-voiced raving of a fanatic. "They permeate our government and our defenses, but they are not motivated to protect the best interest of the fully human species. They are only concerned with advancing their own agenda! We believe that agenda to be world domination at the very least. Our goal is mobilization of research in order to secure the homeland from supernatural attack and covert infiltration."

Which is a perfectly good Villain Motivation for the bad guy to have! It's topical, everyone can understand that it's Bad and why and how, Nazis make good bad guys for a reason, including in very silly stories sometimes, etc etc. I'm never going to get too worked up about using racism as a cartoon villain motivation. (I might get worked up about it being done poorly, but that's a different issue.)

So that's fine. HOWEVER. In the denouement, Carringer has the main supernatural character say offhandedly to the heroine,

"After all, normal humans are right to suspect a supernatural agenda. We are basically immortal; our goals are likely to be a little different from those of ordinary people, sometimes even at odds. When all is said and done, daylight folk are still food."

And I was like, WAIT WAIT NO THE MESSAGE TO TAKE FROM 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH ANTISEMITISM IS NOT 'Well, fair enough to be honest, Jews actually do have their own secret agenda and conflicting interests to everyone else, like an inherent desire to kill them'. And obviously I recognise it's not a direct metaphor or intended to be one, and that it's a Trashy Book with One-Note Bad Guys and the fictional context of humans and supernatural people is very different than the historical context of Anglican Brits and Jewish Brits. But. It was very weird to have dialogue that established a clear, specific parallel to historical racism and then have the main oppressed character go 'Yeah, but the racist guys trying to commit genocide did have a point about our shifty motives, because we do basically want to kill all humans.'

ANYWAY. Fun novel, jolly read, the romance was hot, and I'm not sorry I spent £1.49 for it on Kindle, but...that was weird.

Before that I read There's Something About Scotland, a fun travel novella that cost 77p and I got through on my way back from Edinburgh. I particularly enjoyed:

"As we got off the train [in Glasgow], we felt a rush of energy that we hadn't noticed in Edinburgh. Edinburrah was BBC-listening, chardonnay-sipping, tie-wearing. Glasgow didn't own any ties and if it did, they were for hanging on the door because Glasgow was having sex in the flat it shared with six other roommates."

What do you think you'll read next?

I've had a pretty spectacular plumb of Amazon's 12 Days of Christmas Kindle sale, and have picked up several history books I'm looking forward to. I've heard great things about Empire Of The Summer Moon, and Peter The Great: His Life and World looks deliciously comprehensive.