sundries

[rm]

Gaylaxicon 2010 has been canceled.

An article on comment policies on news websites completely misses the value and middle-ground offered by ongoing pseudononymous identities, while also grasping that yes, comments on news sites are waaaaaaay out of control.

feyandstrange offers us a guide to traveling while living with a disability in the wake of one person's completely fucked up treatment by United Airlines.

I am, at the moment, listening to UK political announcements. Their politics are more grim and more like US politics than I would have suspected. On the other hand, seeing that even your conservative party is willing to praise art and literature (and then not denigrate it later) as the opening of a speech is bewildering to me. These things are seen as terrible to at least 50 percent of the US electorate.

My friend Kristin is in Italy right now, studying art history. This is her blog. If you like the idea of private pilgrimages, you should read it.

Awesomecakes Torchwood set pic I've never seen before.

My mobile is back amongst the living.

And, yes, I know the "blip in time" line is actually from the most recent of the radio plays and not the death scene. I was flustered. But hey, look, I really was in Cardiff

Comments

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

Great pictures!

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

Lovely pics!

I'm blown away by that woman's travel experience. The multiple levels of fail are just staggering.

[elisi]

Oh photos! (Loved your post yesterday btw, sorry I didn't comment.)

I am, at the moment, listening to UK political announcements. Their politics are more grim and more like US politics than I would have suspected.
I think the main difference (other than that our Right is waaaaaaaay to the left of your Right, as you noted) is that everyone is deeply cynical about all the parties, and politics in general - if the conservatives win, it's only because Labour has become utterly hopeless. (Although we do get magazine covers like this, which is nice.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

They just referenced Doctor Who and Ashes to Ashes in one of the political speeches. Quite odd to me.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

They're just trying to pretend they understand popular culture. Both our leading parties currently are really centre parties - one slightly left of, and one slightly right of, but essentially centre, at least in public. Our recent history - Thatcher, strikes, sleaze, bumbled socialism, winter of discontent - rather ensures that anyone who takes a harder line on either side of the political spectrum renders themselves an object of huge public mistrust. That Cameron's entire campaign is based on the premise that, look, the Tories have changed, honestly, much like Blair's was when he brought "New" Labour to power, is kind of a glaring indictment of the mess both of them have been making in recent decades.

As such, in the run up to the election, neither side wants to risk alienating any portion of the electorate - so the general public, it's a game of shifting through the bullshit and lipservice for what actually might happen. The Tories might be praising art and literature out loud, but they can't be trusted to value it when they're gunning for the BBC behind the scenes. They're the same on gay rights, making public flowers-and-chocolates gestures to the LGBT community, but behind the scenes not actually making it count.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got that part. I mean, I'm staying round the corner from the Tory billboard that got splashed with grafitti to make it look like it was covered in blood.

That type of art and literature lip service -- even that we can't have in the US. Education beyond a basic "our schools should be good" is seen as immoral, and art and literature are viewed as unmanly and therefore unacceptable for anyone running for office to acknowledge. Saying a political leader reads here is pretty much code for accusing him of being gay.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

That is fucked up.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Don't forget shrieking "NEEEEERRRD!!!" at anyone mentioning a love of SF/Fantasy.

But on the other hand, I can safely presume that David Cameron believes that the planet that he is standing on it way more than 6,000 years old, right? To Yankee ears, a politician calling themselves "Conservative" but OK with science seems like a massive contradiciton.

The widespread meme of "Proud of Being Ignorant" currently infesting the GOP over here in the US makes me worried that we will soon see reading beyond an 8th grade level being cast as a elitist affection.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I feel like it's already like that. I learned about the Cultural Revolution in China the same year Dan Quayle started ranting about the cultural elite and, being a somewhat overwraught teen, became convinced that someone would come and beat me an break my glasses because I was studying Latin.

I'm less crazy now, but I felt safer then.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

I see your Cultural Revolution, and raise you one Khmer Rouge roaming the countryside killing everybody wearing glasses, on account of them being too educated for the Shiny Happy Fun Worker's Parardise / Death Camp.

Which it why I am surprised that Sarah Palin wears them rather than get contacts or get LASIK instead...

I was in London in the last week of 1997, first of 1998. Your discussion of how fiction and the city overlap reminded my of the fun I had reading Gaiman's "Neverwhere" while in London.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. Even when the Tories were a real right wing party, they wouldn't have been spouting creationism stuff. They've never really been anti-intellectual, they've just tilted the system in favour of the already privileged. If anything, historically, it's been the hardline left in this country tending to be disparaging of the intellectualism as a bourgeois or upper class pursuit, but then our strongest leftist influences have been more socialist than liberal until very recently.

I can't get my head round pride in being ignorant, it's just beyond my comprehension how anyone could aspire to that :/

[lyorn.livejournal.com]

everyone is deeply cynical about all the parties, and politics in general

Over the last year, I happend upon three cases in media where someone from the UK portrayed government politicians as Neutral Evil -- as in, keep the law or break it as long as damage gets done. I wonder if that's a trend...

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome pic of you in front of the water tower. You look like a real TW operative, about to descend the invisible lift. :D

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Their politics are more grim and more like US politics than I would have suspected.

Not an expert by any means, but it seems that it is now fashionable - after the infiltration of American pop culture into the UK - for British politicians to emulate some of the same US attitudes to rhetoric and soundbites (if not to other aspects of politics, as you note.) The funny thing is that, as elisi notes upthread, Labour and the Conservatives are so centrist that the former *actual* centrists, the Lib Dems, are finding themselves out to the left of centre with the Green Party.

The Radio Times covers are a thing of genius, though. (Also, have you seen the latest Economist front cover? That was a good piece of snark.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

The speech I heard this morning included repeated repetitions of "We the People" and I was like "really, you guys?"

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I had no idea it was that bad.

Lovely photos, anyway. Was it particularly windy on Roald Dahl Plass?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Not as much as it's been in London, but yeah, quite a bit.

[smirnoffmule.livejournal.com]

I'd tend to blame Tony Blair. He's responsible for a vast amount of the shift in tone of British politics over the last couple of decades, and he's a huge Americanophile (? I'm sure there's a tidier word than that, but you know what I mean), not to mention the crown prince of the soundbite.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

Yeah, another fried posted about the United Airlines thing. Not that I have any money to travel right now, not by subway let alone air, but they won't be getting any of my money anything soon.

See, my stepmom use to work for the airlines way back when Eastern was still around. She worked first in reservations and then was management writing tariffs, ie the fares and other nonsense.

I can tell you, helping with the passengers, all passengers, IS what stewardesses are suppose to do. And any other flight I have been on, it's what they do. And all the United employees along the line dropped the ball on this one.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

United is my least favorite airline. Hey I'm not disabled and I've been treated to the grand run around, rude service, snippy flight attendants, no information or help from customer service on numerous occasions. I fly them only when I have to.

And knowning how exhausting dealing with their screw ups are, (your luggage really is in terminal 3 - really...did they tell you 3? Oh they meant two, or was it one... luggage? we know nothing about our stinkin' luggage little missy...oh your luggage is in luggage jail and my keys don't work...)I can just imagine the additional fatigue and misery this would create for someone with a disability.

Not to defend the employees, but United management treats their employees like shit. And some of the 'tude is probably due to the trickle down effect. When are they going to learn that at least to most destinations, their prices are the same as everyone else and yes, we do have a choice of which airline to fly.

[rm.livejournal.com]

If I jump up and down on it, I bet their crap lighting fixtures shake ;)

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Note of unsurprise on the United thing:

My evil aunt and her equally awful dead husband both worked for United. She was a flight attendant (and I could super easy hear her saying what was said to evilpuppy), and he worked in management.

I AM ABOUT TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK AND DIE FROM MY LACK OF SURPRISE.

[redeem147.livejournal.com]

I'm very sorry to hear about Gaylaxicon. I attended the most recent Toronto one, and enjoyed it very much. I'm glad it's a one year blip because of hotel problems and not a permanent situation.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

You are so suave, man :)

Great pics! Dude, that water tower is MASSIVE!

I'd love to see a political campaign that treated the voters as more than mouth breathers, you've not seen cynical politics until you've been to Israel, I swear.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Patty has some full shots of the tower. The scale is very different than it looks on TV, I think. I mean, I look at these photos, and I think it's so much more attractive here and in film. It's a scale made for capture, in RL it doesn't work as well.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Those are wonderful pictures. I'm glad you are enjoying the UK so much.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I am, at the moment, listening to UK political announcements. Their politics are more grim and more like US politics than I would have suspected. On the other hand, seeing that even your conservative party is willing to praise art and literature (and then not denigrate it later) as the opening of a speech is bewildering to me. These things are seen as terrible to at least 50 percent of the US electorate.

One of the most amazing thing I found when visiting the UK was how much it highlighted the pervasive anti-intellectualism of the US. Average middle class UK residents refer to the plants in their gardens by Latin names, and a host of other tiny things that were unimaginable in the US.

[kill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! I'm so glad I got to spend time with you in NYC, even if it was just a little bit. I found it corrective, in a way, and I'm sure you know what I mean.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

My goodness, you had time to see that while you're away? Thanks for the link.

The pictures are lovely and - I never know how to describe that weirdness of combining something fictional with something real, the "I've only seen this on TV and yet I know it and love it" standing next to something as "ordinary" as oneself. (Ridiculous note on that: my first experience of that involved Thomas the Tank Engine.)

I'm reading about the election run-up in the news and it's lovely British, but a bit banal. I can't believe I miss Neal Kinnock, but he did bring a little color and life to the process. This lot make John Major look colorful and interesting.