The Farmstead

Sometimes I think Laurie Penny talks completely out of her backside (or more likely on three coffees at three AM before a deadline when she actually can't think of anything to say), but sometimes she's great and this was nice:

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/01/sherlock-and-adventure-overzealous-fanbase

( Sherlock spoilers(ish) )

All of these things are significantly less plausible than gay sex. I’m just saying.

What is significant about fan fiction is that it often spins the kind of stories that showrunners wouldn’t think to tell, because fanficcers often come from a different demographic. The discomfort seems to be not that the shows are being reinterpreted by fans, but that they are being reinterpreted by the wrong sorts of fans - women, people of colour, queer kids, horny teenagers, people who are not professional writers, people who actually care about continuity (sorry). The proper way for cultural mythmaking to progress, it is implied, is for privileged men to recreate the works of privileged men from previous generations whilst everyone else listens quietly. That’s how it’s always been done. That’s how it should be done in the future, whatever Tumblr says.

But time can be rewritten. Myths can bend and change. Something new and exciting is happening in the world of storytelling, and fans are an important part of it. All kinds of fans, from obsessive cupboard-dwellers to the shouty social justice crowd to livejournal perverts who just want to know what Sherlock would have to say about the chemical composition of personal lubricant.

On this and other matters, it doesn’t do showrunners any harm to pay attention to their fans. We are living in a world of stories where thousands of new voices from diverse communities are speaking up, sharing ideas and creating new worlds out of the shadows of the ones we knew as children - but so far, a handful of professional chaps still get to make the decisions. Now, where have we heard that one before?

(To put my cards on the table, I haven't been watching Sherlock this series, but I wandered through a few times when my parents were watching it over Christmas to see the bit I quote LP's description of and thought it was dead cringe + just an insult. In general I went off Sherlock last season and haven't heard anything to make me think it's got any better/any less like Doctor Who... But the piece is still nice.)

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.

Well, the Pope's resigning. I don't have much to say about that, though I like the idea forwarded on the telly this morning that the new Pope might be from somewhere other than Europe. I think that would be nice for a lot of Catholics around the world.

In other news, though, I can't get over what has become known as the 'horsemeat scandal'! For those who haven't seen this particular bit of British/European news, they recently found that some (value) beef ready meals/things have contained horsemeat rather than proper beef and, the more they dig into it, the more there seems to have been some serious organised fraud happening in a pan-European supply chain - the latest victim is Tesco's spag bol.

I just can't help but feel like this is one of the definitive stories of our times. There's so much bound up in it - how expensive meat is (becoming again? has always been?) that fraud is worthwhile, how cheap we want/need our food, how meat-heavy we want our diets to be (despite all that), and yet how picky we are about what animals+cuts we eat - even when they're processed beyond our ability to discern any difference. Because, presumably, if we just ate horses our pockets would be the ones benefitting, rather than the fraudsters... But we never will.

Basically, I feel like beef is the new bread when you come to food history; it's the site of all our anxieties. Which amuses me.

The headline link to the BBC website's magazine feature on procrastination is doing my head in... Please oh please will someone tell someone that non carpe diem is gobbledegook? I know noli carpere diem isn't a very sexy title, but they'll just have to come up with something else. I can't take it.

In other news, I've been working on the Greek Magical Papyri (which is a collection of random papyrus fragments purporting to be spells and rites etc.), and yesterday it took me about three hours to realise I should probably have been more bemused than I was to read through a list of the different Homeric verses you can use either spoken or written down as part of an amulet to beat menstrual pain or else work as a contraceptive. I've become far too jaded. (And I have such an urge to write a novel about these characters you got wandering around Egypt in the third century AD collecting magical lore and selling trinkets to people... But it would be a nightmare trying to source evidence. Must suppress.)

I watched it at the time, but I'd forgotten how much I love this interview of Russell Brand by Jeremy Paxman. (I think it was late 2010 sometime?) I do think Russell Brand is brilliant when he's on form.

The Commonwealth realms have unanimously decided to get rid of male primacy in our royal succession laws. Also the ban on marrying Catholics.

Finally!

A snappy slideshow about the history of writing and the development of the English alphabet, as plugged by the faculty website (I knew there was a reason I went on there from time to time...):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14544388

Including reference to dear old Ugarit just for you, wildecate!

(I'm not that fussed about the music in the background, but don't let that put you off...)

(PS. Also, aha, it looks as though the poem I was ranting about a while ago wasn't completely wrong about its Sumerian tablets for counting stuff, and probably wasn't thinking of Linear B. It was just me being wrong, so that's nice to know (although IIRC the poem still needed pulling up on the idea that there wasn't all this other stuff going on in Sumerian, which did indeed continue on afterwards for millennia; I still think the tone was off).

I'm back at home in preparation for Things happening, and must must must reply to emails ASAP, but I thought I'd reappear vaguely pointedly, if only because going without the internet feels like dropping off the face of the earth.

On the riots - nothing much has been happening round my way, though my mum's work sent everyone home early yesterday (which was amusingly enough her first day in a new position - so much for settling in!). I hope everybody (and everybody everyone knows) and their possessions are safe! It's all quite appalling. (And yet I cannot help but be disgruntled by Nick Robinson on the news saying that Cazza will be keen to say that these aren't political actions against the government but apolitical attacks against the people. As far as I'm concerned, the business of government is managing the population so that society doesn't break down into violence and fear. How can this not be an attack against the government if our government is truly constituted by the people? And don't get me started on the petition to axe rioters' benefits. Of course what we need right now are violently disaffected people out in the streets with nowhere to live...)

Otherwise - my tinnitus is acting up and my glasses are still wonky from where I fell over a couple of weeks ago (not that I expect them to fix themselves, but one can dream). Add to that a letter from the Student Loans Company saying that I haven't told them anything about my situation (when I have, I bloody have) and they're going to fine me 150 quid if I don't declare what I'm doing and how I'm supporting myself within twenty-eight days, I'm a bit grumpy. Not to mention my laptop coming back from Dell with a new hard drive (yay? Only time will tell if it doesn't freeze anymore), but of course with all my settings undone, and me not realising how many accummulative tweaks I'd made. Like to the effing touchpad mouse, which is teeth-gratingly sensitive (and I can't find the bloody settings to change it).

However - college has decided to award me a prize (of money) for my MPhil thesis, strangely enough. This is nice. Reassuring, in fact, since it seems as though academia may still be the one area in which I'm not actually incompetent. And people say I should get out and find a real job...

Rest in peace, Poly Styrene. You were and and always will be a legend.



Rock on.

The first ever Western-made film to air in North Korea? Bend It Like Beckham.

Apparently it was in honour of the 10th anniversary of diplomatic ties being established between North Korea and the UK. I'm intrigued! Would love to know who picked the film (and which eight minutes were purportedly cut). It's a good film after all; I remember watching it at a sleepover back in the day, and I saw it again on the telly quite recently (and kept on having flashbacks during football practice - yeah, I took up football; it's a work in progress). Would it be the film I'd pick to propose North Korea aired? I don't know. But I certainly don't think it's a bad one - and I suppose it is easy to forget how internationally unifying football can be.

Anyone got any thoughts?