kerrypolka: Contemporary Lois Lane with cellphone (Default)
I think my favourite thing about the new Star Trek movies is how canonically shit Starfleet is.

Spoilers for Star Trek: INTO DORKNESS )
kerrypolka: Contemporary Lois Lane with cellphone (Default)
Has anybody figured out the polite and non-embarrassing way to correct someone's pronunciation in conversation?

All my friends who were a bit bookish as kids (and lots who weren't) have those words we read and sounded out in our heads before we knew how to pronounce them: 'epitome', 'segue', 'hors d'oeuvres', etc. I'm sure I still have a few words wrong - and every so often I hear someone I consider a peer mispronounce a similar kind of easy-to-mistake word.

I definitely want to know if I'm mispronouncing something, and I expect most people do too - but I can't figure out how someone would tell a friend or coworker, "Hey, that's actually pronounced e-PIT-oh-mee, not eppy-tome!" without it being really embarrassing and condescending. But there should be a way to do it, it's information the person wants to know!
kerrypolka: Contemporary Lois Lane with cellphone (Default)
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.
kerrypolka: (darren nichols)
Oh! Also! The answer to 'most famous scene' in Pete Brown's book was Romeo & Juliet's balcony scene. I was a bit taken aback by how confidently it was put in there, but most of you agree, and on reflection I think I do too. Thank you for voting/commenting if you did, I am not always very sure about my perception of Shakespeare vs general perception!

Also, I was pleased to find that a headline referring to "Shakespeare's favorite recurring character" was about my favourite recurring character too! I assumed it would be about Falstaff...
kerrypolka: (shs: got to get paid son)
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.)

Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 34


What is Shakespeare's most famous scene?

View Answers

Hamlet addressing Yorick's skull
12 (35.3%)

The balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet
20 (58.8%)

Lady Macbeth sleeplessly scrubbing her hands
2 (5.9%)

Other
0 (0.0%)

kerrypolka: (library pub)
What did you just finish reading?
"The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James. Here is what I knew about the book before I read it:

1. It's free on Kindle;
2. It sounded kind of boring;
3. There is a minor debate in literary circles about whether the narrator is mad or not.

YOU ARE ALL FIRED BECAUSE THIS BOOK IS AMAZING. Also, how is this even a debate, the governess is bonkers. There are like five conversations that go:

GOVERNESS: Mrs Grose! MRS GROSE. I have felt something!!
MRS GROSE: Um, okay.
GOVERNESS: IT'S ABOUT THE CHILDREN MRS GROSE!!!
MRS GROSE: What about the children? Are they all right? Where are they right now?
GOVERNESS: Playing on a cliff top or on a high tower or next to the deep easy-to-drown-in lake, I don't know? Wait...I can sense it! THEY ARE COMING FOR THEM!
MRS GROSE: Who is coming for whom?
GOVERNESS: THE DEAD VALET AND HIS DEAD TROLLOP GOVERNESS GIRLFRIEND, MRS GROSE, KEEP UP
MRS GROSE: I...sure.
GOVERNESS: [narration] Although my friend's natural reticence prevented her from saying so, I could see she agreed with me that the ghosts had returned and were threatening the dear children, and we had to act immediately!

So that was hilarious and I was sad it ended just as everything was kicking off.

I also read "Judaism: All That Matters" by Keith Kahn-Harris, whom I know tangentially through synagogue. He has a PhD in heavy metal, and last weekend I went to an excellent talk by him titled 'Shul of Rock' about what kind of Jewish music he hates and exactly why it's terrible. It's an intro book on Judaism and the only reason I bought it was I went "Hey, I know that guy!" when it popped up in the Kindle sale, but it's a very good intro book as these things go. I wrote about it a little on my proper blog here: "Judaism: All That Matters" by Keith Kahn-Harris (2012)

What are you reading now?
"Finding George Orwell in Burma" by Emma Larkin. This is fabulous so far. I was sceptical at first because it seemed like a travel book hung on a flimsy pseudo-literary pretext, but it's really insightful into both Orwell (who served in Burma, and returned when he was ill and near dying) and the country today. It was published in 2006, before the regime started to crack, and it talks a lot about repressive societies, social theory, etc through the lens of both Orwell's fiction and the then-contemporary reality of Burma.

What will you read next?
It might be time to crack out "Shakespeare's Local" by Pete Brown.
kerrypolka: The Kilburn Bookshop (kilburn bookshop)
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?
kerrypolka: (library pub)
What have you recently finished reading?
Well, I needed a breather after Mantel FrenchRevolutionfest (which I have also written a bit about on my Properish Blog - Book review: "A Place of Greater Safety"). I haven't completed any full-on books since then - I've mostly been flipping through The Economist and trying to recover my feeeeeelings.


What are you reading now?
It turns out The Ornament of the World is still buried in a moving box somewhere (yes, we moved 14 months ago, I don't want to hear it). So it's been a slightly random public-domain-so-it's-free-on-Kindle option: The Turn of the Screw.

I know the plot and I've read and enjoyed discussions about it (mostly, Is The Governess Crazy, Also What Is Up With Hot Uncle), but I've never actually read it. I'm so far enjoying the way it's doing Gothic tropes ("Girl meets house", as Sarah Rees Brennan puts it) while going "Ha ha, this sure is a Gothic trope all right! But seriously there are ghosts and someone is probably going to die."

Also, it is short, and I am still kind of fried (in a good way) from A Place of Greater Safety.

What will you read next?

kerrypolka: (library pub)
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.
kerrypolka: The "solidarity" clenched fist logo Photoshopped to be holding a lulav. (judaism: occupy Sukkot)
I've noticed something happening in let's-talk-about-feminist-things conversations over the past year or so, which I don't like. It goes something like:

"Hey, well-known female thinker/writer has a great article up or is otherwise worthy of mention!"
"Oh, well-known female thinker/writer, I haven't got on with her ever since I found out [thing]."

And the implication is, "now she has fallen from the online feminist canon and we may never utter her name again".

Sometimes [thing] is a totally reasonable thing to write off a thinker for! For example: "Oh, Julie Burchill, I haven't got on with her ever since I found out she was ragingly hatefully transphobic." Totally! That makes sense! Me neither!

But I've also seen it with other women where the statement, and the idea expressed, are more ambiguous or complicated, and the attitude of the commenter is more, "Guys, I've unlocked this one! I've found the secret reason why we can dismiss everything Caitlin Moran has ever said about anything!"

This was brought to mind by a recent conversation about Hilary Mantel, but I've seen the exact same thing happen with other prominent women writers, both public figures and online ones (ie maybe not famous-famous but known to everyone in the conversation).

I think it's generally good to be aware of areas in which people are less good – Caitlin Moran and racial representation in popular media, maybe not so much! – but the attitude I've seen this happen with is less "FYI, this area isn't really their strong suit, just so you keep that in mind while reading" but "I've cracked the code and figured out why their arguments are automatically invalid forever!"

And when that code is something ambiguous from 15 years ago that doesn't even definitely mean [horrible thing], or [horrible thing] is something complicated and difficult and in fact it's not obvious it is shunningly horrible, or it's on Twitter and it's a complex point and ferchrissakes it's 160 characters, it sometimes feels like the commenter(s) going "Look at this horrible thing!" are arguing really hard for it to be a horrible thing because they want it to be.

I don't know. Do we really need to be looking for reasons to dismiss and ignore feminist thinkers? I am not sure we do! I am not sure it is helpful to each other and I am pretty sure it is not helping to bring about the revolution (I could be wrong though).
kerrypolka: (champagne)
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.
kerrypolka: (library pub)
What have you just finished reading?

Caitlin Moran's Moranthology, which is fine! It's a collection mostly of her Times columns, as well as some other work including the well-known Lady Gaga interview. It's exactly what I expected from an anthology of Caitlin Moran's writing, which is funny, enthusiastic and sometimes missing the point (but never toooo badly).

What are you currently reading?

After this great tragic occurrence:



I've picked up Hilary Mantel's A Place Of Greater Safety, which at least has some revolutionaries having sex, jeez.

I'm only in the first 75 pages, so I don't feel I can talk about it too well yet, but it's very good so far, as you'd expect. I'm enjoying reading about inequality and economic depression in the 1780s, as written by a novelist in the 1980s-early 90s (published in 1992). Bring Up The Bodies also had some pointed-to-2012-readers discussion about infrastructure spending, and - although Mantel is very good, and it's never intrusive, or inaccurate - I like thinking about which bits of the politics and economics in A Place Of Greater Safety are there more because of 1787, or more because of 1990.

What do you think you'll read next?

Well, the Mantel is like 750 pages so that might keep me occupied until next week. After that, probably something in the public domain, I need to stop spending money on books for a little bit! Maybe some more Elizabeth Gaskell - or raiding my (steady on!) physical bookshelf...
kerrypolka: (london: eggware road)
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 [livejournal.com profile] 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.
  • kerrypolka: Contemporary Lois Lane with cellphone (Default)
    Oh, whoops, I polled you about this but then forgot to mention it existed!

    Anyway, I have a new better(?) Real Blog TM that is about more interesting things than money: it is about travel and also history. Planes, Trains and Plantagenets. (Lucky me, Plantagenets popped up in the news cycle JUST as it kicked off.)

    One of the reasons I have been writing about things on a Proper Blog TM and not on LJ or Dreamwidth is that both these sites are blocked at my office, which is annoying and makes me feel a bit isolated. I'm not on them ALL THE TIME (I definitely do not have enough free time at work for that), but I do like to check in briefly once I've sent a page to print, or over lunch, and it's still the main way most people I know keep in touch. I read you on my phone but it is not the same, internet! So, I feel sad about not being able to talk to you people very often: HI.

    I may not be able to read your posts and keep in touch very much but I can exclusively reveal that the show Revenge is AMAZING and you should all talk to me about it. Also, are we still excited about Richard III or have we moved on to gay marriage yet?
    kerrypolka: Henry and Richmond in 3 Henry VI (troy's true hope)
    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.
    kerrypolka: (library pub)
    What have you just finished reading?
    How to Drink, which I thought would be delightful and it absolutely was. It did have the side effect of making me crave everything she writes about (I am looking forward to sinking some fino sherry later tonight). And her writing is excellent.

    Some people think there is no need for instruction when it comes to making gin and tonic. Those people are wrong. A G&T is the most dreadfully traduced of drinks, all too often made too flat, too weak, with one lonely ice cube sweating itself to an early grave and a slice of old lemon floundering on the surface like a corpse, whereas it should be effervescent and bright and so busy with ice that the bubbles have to fight their way up to burst with a splash and a hiss on the top. To make a good gin and tonic you do not just have to care about every ingredient, you have to be anguished about them.

    ...A few, I was pleased to see, took it further. Among them was an editor who had offended countless barmen with his regular G&T-ordering routine, which involved shouting, ‘We’ll have one tonic between two. ONE between TWO,’ then wrestling the bottle out of their hands before they could make a mess of it by daring to pour it for him.


    And:

    Sitting at my desk one gloomy morning, I opened an email that sounded like coded instructions for a mission impossible during the Spanish Civil War: 'Providores has got Fernando de Castilla,' it read. 'I think we should go.'


    And:

    Travelling east again, you reach the blue Aegean. Here, in the scorching heat of Santorini, in the volcanic soil around the island’s crater, they grow a grape called assyrtiko, which makes white wine that is heavily minerallic and so charged it almost feels as if it might explode in your mouth. It’s as clean and sharp as an axe-blade too; drink it with barbecued swordfish and a squeeze of lemon.



    Anyway, it's all like that, and it was a pleasure to read. I'll be dipping in and out of it again quite a bit, I suspect. (It's not all about booze, either.)


    What are you reading now?

    Empire of the Summer Moon, a history of the Comanches (American Plains tribe) from the 1600s to around 1900.

    I didn't know much about this period in that place but it's given me a much stronger sense of the narrative of the American West than I had before, which was:

    1803: Lewis and Clark
    1804-1900ish: The Wild West; also, Texas.

    Empire of the Summer Moon gave a very clear narrative of white settlement and the Native American pushback on that across the 19th century. I finished it this morning on the Tube, and I still can't figure out whether the authorial voice is racist, or just trying to communicate the racism of the whites. It has some good and thoughtful points about white perceptions of Indians, for example about Cynthia Ann Parker here:

    The only explanation is that Cynthia Ann was seen, and treated, as a savage, even though she was as white as any Scots-Irish settler in the south. The double standard is similar to the one National Geographic Magazine famously applied in the mid-twentieth century to photographs of naked African women. The magazine would never have considered showing the breasts of a white woman in its pages.


    But it also refers to Comanches repeatedly as 'savage' and 'uncivilized', sometimes in its 'this-is-history' voice, not just 'from-the-white-perspective' voice. For example:

    The Indian-dominated plains north of that – part of the future states of Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas – were simply unreached yet by anything like civilization.


    On the other (third? first?) hand, the narrative is very much from the perspective of the Comanches – we start with them and see the white settlement of America through how it affects them. I'm glad I read it but I wish there had been a bit clearer distinction between author-as-historian and author-as-commentator.

    What will you read next?
    I started Kiss and Make Up on the Tube, and although I like YA stories with gimmicks, the voice is a little try-hard. I'm going to try it again on my way home and give it up if I don't like it.

    If not that, probably one of Nancy Mitford's collections of letters; I finished Jessica Mitford's Hons and Rebels a few months ago, and OH MITFORDS.
    kerrypolka: Joe Biden with two ice cream cones (politics: joe biden's ice cream cones)
    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.
  • kerrypolka: Contemporary Lois Lane with cellphone (Default)
    Well press day yesterday was a pretty spectacular failure, as the network chose to fall over twenty minutes before pages were out, ie the frantic height of production activity.

    I come in early on Fridays to actually hit 'send' on the pages, which are due at the printers' at 9am, so the magazine wasn't technically late, but it did mean a massive amount of lost work and everyone staying hours later than we needed to, which as a production manager I am VERY OPPOSED TO.

    I was especially annoyed because it was chavrutah night with [personal profile] lavendersparkle. Every other Thursday we get together and do Talmud study, except for last time (when we both forgot to print off the pages and bring them) and this time (when I confidently said "I'll bring them!" and then the office network imploded as I was standing at the printer). Instead we had a gossip about our jobs and the state of Anglo-Jewry.

    I also decided that the situation called for a cocktail. I've been reading How to Drink – it's really excellent – and it reminded me to try an egg-white cocktail. I started with a whisky sour while Sam and I compared Purim experiences (what we could remember of them) and it was so nice I had another one. After the gossip ran out I thought it would be a shame to waste the egg white, so made myself a White Lady (which is probably one of my all-time favourite drinks) and drank it while I made dinner.

    After dinner Ewan was off to poker night and I sat around thinking about applying for jobs. While I was sadly flicking through the Guardian Jobs search results for "edit", I realised that I had all the ingredients for a cocktail I'd bookmarked a few weeks ago, Champs-Elysees. I also realised we were getting low on Cointreau and cognac, and went to the Co-op to restock. (This was the part where, if my life were a TV show I watched, I'd be sighing resignedly and going "Oh, Kerry.")

    I got back and made a Champs-Elysees, and it was gorgeous so I had another one. The second was also gorgeous. I decided I probably wasn't going to get any work done and should go to bed. I made myself a Sidecar as a bedtime cocktail (what, those...exist) and sat happily reading until Ewan texted me to let me know he'd won the poker and, because he's been trying to be more conscious of his drinking, was celebrating with a nice cup of tea.

    I think this is a morality tale about reading well-written books about delicious cocktails on the Tube on the way home, but I had a brilliant time so there.

    Another fun thing we've been doing is planning a holiday to France in April. We're renting a house in Brittany for a week with a big group of friends, and Ewan and I are going down two days early to have an evening in Paris (kind of; our train gets in at 9:30pm) and a day and night in Le Mans.

    I am really looking forward to this (France! Trip! History!), EXCEPT for how we're scheduled to leave just three days after the 'your visa will probably be approved by this time, maybe' date. I'm not allowed to leave the UK until that happens, and I've heard it's been taking longer than that for some people because the UKBA has a big backlog. So I might just...not be able to go. Which would be sad! So, I hope they come before then. Otherwise I will have to sit around drinking cocktails ALL WEEK while Ewan goes off and has fun in Abroad.
    kerrypolka: (library pub)
    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 ([livejournal.com profile] the_alchemist, [livejournal.com profile] atreic, [livejournal.com profile] mirabehn, [livejournal.com profile] 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 [personal profile] 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.
    kerrypolka: (library pub)
    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.

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