So, if you have Netflix... Watch this show!!!!! If you don't, um, ...



This is the only non-spoilery video I could find. But meet Piper Chapman! She's a well-off, liberal, self-involved party girl who just wants to keep her line of artisanal soaps in Barney's. She has a nice fiancé, who's a writer who's going to make it big one day (though his Upper East Side parents can cover for him in the meantime). The statute of limitations on the money trafficking Piper did that one time ten years ago is twelve years, but unfortunately she just got named in the bust on her drug-importing ex-girlfriend Alex (who, by the way, is played by Donna from That 70s show... You can't say that you never wanted to see her again in another role), so now she's in prison. Sad times.

But that is only the beginning! What follows is the long and lengthy deconstruction of someone who lives in their own little narcissistic world who is finally and consistently forced to face consequences for every single action they take in a bubble/fish-bowl like environment. I'm not a huge fan of novelistic television, but for a drama this has all the best elements of sitcom - a small world, a slightly heightened reality (just enough to stretch everyone into distinct characters), with tight and well signposted plotting. And Alex is brilliant. And this is exactly the sort of plot I love - because it's not just deconstruction; it's also transformational. But I don't want to ruin it by telling the whole story, though the great thing is that you can see it coming anyway. Just enjoy watching it play out! Because everyone's great - every single character has a good side and a bad one.

And if you've seen it, talk to me about it!! Although I have to stop my head reading everything in the way most of the characters talk. It makes the me inside my head sound ridiculous.

PS. It's also rated 18 (I think?) for a reason. Most of the graphic sex is in the first few episodes presumably to hook people the same way HBO does. Judge your company?

PPS. Also, how did I fail to recognise that Red is CAPTAIN JANEWAY? Also much missed. But found again!

Thanks for the comments on my fic, gang! Replying to them soon. The library's shut and I'm supposed to do some work at home today... But video!

ETA: OK, so the BBC embed code doesn't work properly. Link instead:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01csgqy

I dunno if it'll play outside of the UK...

Proper random, but browsing Topshop... I love this look, but cannot see myself ever, ever wearing it:

( ... )

This is basically the sad truth about a lot of where Topshop has gone recently. Maybe with a t-shirt that actually properly hit the top of those jeans? But also, I know, because I own some creepers, that I wouldn't be able to walk anywhere proper in those shoes without getting blisters, because my ankles have no grip at all. :'(

[Although, the more I look at this image, the more it seems obvious to me that the model's belly button must have been photoshopped in and she's not wearing the right shoe properly. So I'm happier to admire this as fashion photography that bears no resemblance to the potential of clothes in situ...]

Go, go, go: moriwen1's What is This, a Joke?

Spike and Aslan walk into a bar. Or, more exactly, Spike's on the hunt for his soul and ends up with a bloody terrifying lead. Cue a breezy-fresh short story with solid metaphysical credentials nonetheless. And chapter one has a twist that keeps on giving. brutti_ma_buoni already linked it, but I'm linking it again, because I don't want you lot to miss it!

In other news, which should probably get its own post so as not to sour the proceedings, I've been sucked back into The Voice? I think it must say something for the rejigging of the format, because it was about this time last year that I abandoned it. It's just a fact, though, that neither Danny wotsisarrogantface nor Tom Jones have any clue about production, which is such a shame, because Jessie J and will.i.am's people are the only ones who end up giving proper thought-through performances.

Everyone's clear favourite, as it should be, is Leah... Because this is just aces! I can't bear pop, but modern covers of disco I apparently like. Also, the vast heaps of sarcasm she pours over the lyrics are great.



But I also like Leanne, who got kicked off. I think she dreams of being Christina Aguilera, but she really needs to be on the dance circuit. That icy high register of hers is dying out for pounding electronics. As they started getting to with this:



Soz; I iz proper hyper on curry and Hotel Chocolat chocolate wot I couldn't resist on the way home.

So, in a fit of wanting someone else to find new music for me, I signed up to the subscription service run by Rough Trade, where you get six of their favourite new tracks for £2.99 per week. It says that they get tracks often ahead of release and you get additional material - so far, I can certainly say that these tracks do seem to be ahead of release and properly fresh in that way. Not sure what they're talking about in terms of additional material, but they do also say that this is a fairly new service and they're building it up as they go along, so we'll see what happens!

For as long as I go for it, I thought it might also be fun to keep a blog of my feelings on the tracks. I actually thought this would be more difficult than I'm hoping it will be... My general worry with the service was that, as sponsored by the Guardian, it was going to be a lot of samey Guardian-reader-friendly tunes aimed at 30 year olds, which ten years ago would have meant a lot of Pixies-esque stuff... I don't know if it isn't that, but there's definitely variety here and a clear identity between tracks. My fear now that I'm interested in three of the tracks enough to want the albums is that every Saturday could potentially start getting very expensive. :/

( Reviews )

Overall I think that was a success! Not pausing my subscription yet.

I like it when Newsnight packages the interesting bits into single videos:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22625480

(Also, this reminds me of how much I've enjoyed some articles in the Financial Times over the years. Sure, I have no money to do anything with this stuff, but it's very interesting. And the How To Spend It magazine is the best of all 'ogle expensive junk' periodicals, even if the ratio of men's stuff:women's stuff in it is a woeful reflection of the financial sector.)

(Yes, I went looking for yesterday's Newsnight. It's not up yet.)

So, I think this is exactly the same as a parka I bought a couple of months ago in navy blue (because everyone seems to own khaki now and getting a new khaki parka seemed like an insult to my old, beloved, knackered one)... Only it's got peacocks on it?

http://tinyurl.com/ce82atk

(Bearing in mind that the reviews are silly and I thought I didn't like my blue parka because it was unlined and a bit basic, but now spend most of my time walking around in it looking in shop window reflections and thinking how well it goes with skinny jeans and DMs.)

(Really, I think I want it. I just feel poor because I finally got around to dumping most of my savings in an ISA rather than having them floating around my current account. You like it too, right?)

ETA: Wellll... I hope I don't regret that in the morning. To be fair, I haven't been drinking recently. So that makes it OK.

Once upon a time a read a lecture summary or something on the Cambridge website about what would happen if humans upped and vanished one day from a large city (such as Cambridge)... I've never been able to find it again, but it stuck with me and was one of the main inspirations behind abridgement. And these images from Pripyat in the Chernobyl exclusion zone remind me of that too:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-22246328

Can't get over that second image with the forest re-emerging between the buildings.

^ BBC headline right now. About pregnant!Kate pics.

... Er, gang, we're still in 2013, right? Watching Supersizers Eat The Fifties didn't actually send me back in time, did it? o.O

(Also watched the Supersizers do the Eighties. When did I start being charmed so much by the 80s? Why won't it stop?)

(I really, really don't want to go back to the library tomorrow. Even though I have Responsibilities To Undergrads I Have Been Shirking. My mum was right. I've hit the wall of my particular PhD marathon. In sport/bizarre craft projects this is usually where I give up. And my head is tender still. :( )

So, I am on my new computer! The shiny, it is beautiful. Windows 8 is weird and a bit cumbersome, but I think I can see myself enjoying it when I get to grips with it. Office 2013 seems fine, but I do NOT like the DESIGN CHOICE that MENU HEADINGS should be in CAPITALS. Ugly and hard to read at a glance. :( But I'm sure I'll get used to it.

The real sea change, though, is my monitor. Ever since I saw bogwitch's old HP laptop (even with its heating issues...), I have coveted an HP screen and the same depth of colour intensity. At last the dream has been realised in 23 inches of glory! (Because there were bigger screens on the market, I, er, thought it was going to be smaller than it was...) Watching HD on it earlier just makes me want to watch things all the time. And design things. And watch more things. Even if I'll probably stick to fic for the moment (and trying to remember how things used to be on my old Firefox).