#brexit means brexit folks
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"this is a Marie Antoinette government, pampering itself while too many of its people go hungry."
#uk politics#boris johnson#jacob rees mogg#kier starmer#politics#brexit means brexit folks#brexit#france#united kingdom#eu#europe#capitalism
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Get Our Whole Store For $44, Black Friday (-7) Edition
Seriously, I resent the whole Black Friday thing. Yet if you don’t do it, people think maybe you’re not serious about selling your stuff. (heavy sigh) ...Fine. But can we maybe get it over with a week early? Because I hate interrupting people’s holidays.
Many of our Tumblr friends know what this particular discount offer is about: they’ve seen it before. (Last time it was about replacing a dying computer. Which has indeed happened, and we’re waiting for its replacement to arrive: thanks to all who assisted!) ...But sort of fifteen hundred or two thousand more people are following this account than were last week about this time (and y’all are very welcome!), and I can’t help but wonder if maybe some of them would like some of this action: a lot of books for CHEAP. (...I mean, thirty-five novels and short works for $44? Looks bargain-ish to me.)
The list of the books on offer is on the product page linked to below. The New Millennium Editions of the Young Wizards novels are there, and all the current Middle Kingdoms works, and a lot more.
...So! For the next twenty-four hours, you can get our entire ebook store’s inventory for USD $44. Just go to this URL and put one of the “I Want Everything You’ve Got” packages in your shopping basket (make sure to tell the page which ebook format you want/need: Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks/Apple or generic .epub), and then proceed to the checkout. You’ll find (when you’re in the checkout: it won’t do this until then) that the store applies your discount automatically, like this:
...Then you just make the payment by whatever method you prefer, and the store emails you the download links for the files.
(BTW, in case anybody accidentally just goes straight to the main product link [which doesn’t auto-attach the discount], the discount code is EVERY24. That way if it’s missing from the field in the checkout page, you can put it in yourself.)
...Anyway: Enjoy, all! Thanks for taking the time to check this out. And if this offer’s of no interest to you, would you please consider reblogging it for the attention of others who may? Please & Thank You. :)
(And one last note: UK folks—to our great annoyance, we can’t include you in this offer... so please forgive us. Due to Brexit we can no longer sell direct into the UK. Details on that are here. ...Our apologies again.) :(
#ebooks#sale#get our whole store for $44#Black Friday#dear sweet Thoth but let's get it over with NOW
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for the wip ask meme: cover story!
Thank you for this ask (from this WIP game)! a couple of folks have asked about this one. It's the Ted/Trent spy-AU-in-a-Notting-Hill-bookshop-AU, which stalled because the premise got too unwieldy and the literary references got out of hand. (It did have a playlist I was quite fond of, with a number of Kinks songs including, presciently, A Well Respected Man). Because I am unlikely to ever finish it, I thought I'd just fic amnesty the whole thing here, so:
Cover Story
Trent is about to wind up stocktaking when the door to the bookshop bangs open. “We’re closed,” he calls irritably, and then he turns and sees who it is.
“I got something of a reading emergency,” says Ted Lasso.
Trent takes him in: breathing hard, collar askew, perspiration plastering a lick of hair against his forehead. In his hand is a gun. Trent recognises it as a Heckler & Koch P30L.
Trent ought to be going for his own weapon right about now. Instead he says: “So it is you.”
“Yep,” says Ted.
“I knew it,” hisses Trent. “I fucking knew it.”
“Boy, you sure do like to be right about stuff.” Ted pauses, then staggers. Trent sees that he is favouring his left side, and that the shirt beneath the puffer jacket is darkening with blood.
“Ted,” he begins, “wh – ”
“Like I said,” Ted grits out, “emergency.” And then he collapses in the middle of Trent’s bookshop.
Five weeks earlier
“You wouldn’t happen to have the latest John le Carré, would you?”
Trent has to climb a little ways down the ladder to see the man speaking to him. It’s one of the American tourists who wandered in after lunch. There are always Americans underfoot these days, trawling the aisles of the bookshop as if in hope of a meet-cute out of Notting Hill. Trent, as a rule, finds Americans tedious and does his level best to avoid them in all his lines of work; he achieves this in the bookshop by hiding in the stacks and leaving them to the tender mercies of his assistant. Unfortunately, this appears to be a particularly persistent specimen. Trent descends a few more rungs and braces himself.
“Is that the one with Brexit?”
“The one with the bookshop.” The American has a very distracting moustache. He looks almost exactly like a slide Trent once saw in Disguises 101: How Not To Overdo It. He is also wearing multiple layers beneath his puffer jacket, like some sort of Midwestern matryoshka, even though the shop’s heating is working perfectly well. Trent is automatically suspicious of customers with many layers, lest they are shoplifters. But a shoplifter would not go to such lengths to gain his attention.
“If you mean the posthumously published one, it’s not yet in stock. Shipping delays, I’m afraid.”
“Ain’t that a pity,” says the American. “I was sold on the premise. A bookshop that’s secretly a base for spy shenanigans? Tell me you don’t want to see how that turns out.”
Trent removes his glasses, keeping his expression bland. “You could put in an order, but if you’re not in town for long then I daresay there isn’t much point.”
“Oh, we’ll be here for a while. Long vacation. Thought we’d take it easy, like the Eagles would say. Though this ain’t Winslow, Arizona.”
“You can place an order with Miss Bowen at the counter,” says Trent, after he has cast about for a response to that string of gibberish and come up empty.
“You bet I will. If I could just – ” The American reaches out, and Trent almost breaks his wrist on instinct, but he simply brushes past Trent’s sleeve and pulls a secondhand copy of Call For The Dead off the shelf. “Maybe we ain’t see the last of le Carré, but at least it’s a first.”
“Ah, ha,” says Trent, to mask his surprise that they even have a copy of Call For The Dead in stock. It’s probably languished in here for years, unsold. “Good eye.”
“Well, I thank you for the consultation, Mr…”
“Crimm. Trent Crimm, The Independent.”
“Well, Trent, I appreciate you. Keep fighting the good fight.”
Trent blinks. “Against…?”
“Amazon,” says the American brightly. “Which, as an American, I apologise for.”
“Er, quite,” says Trent. “Sorry about Brexit, and all that.”
The American’s name on the order form is Ted Lasso, which makes him sound like a fictional character. He collects his bearded friend from the philosophy section and they depart, engaged in a discussion so animated that Lasso walks into the shop door, rebounds with no perceptible damage and continues his argument without missing a beat. Trent and Miss Bowen watch them go, mildly perplexed.
“Is he a subscriber? I don’t recognise either of them.”
“Just an ordinary customer, from the looks of it. He wanted to talk about books.”
“I suppose it must happen from time to time, in a bookshop,” says Miss Bowen dryly.
Trent crosses to her side of the counter, which is built in such a way that a customer, standing in line, would not be able to see what her hands might be doing. He leans down casually to check the automatic shotgun mounted under the countertop.
“He was talking about the new le Carré. It’s about spies in a bookshop, apparently.”
“Oh,” says Miss Bowen, eyebrow raised. “Is it now?”
“Yes,” says Trent. “We ought to get hold of it quite quickly, I think. In case there’s been a breach.”
“Come now.” She turns to him sharply. “Le Carré couldn’t have written a novel about us. I mean, he’d never been in the shop. We’d know, wouldn’t we?”
“I daresay we would, Miss Bowen. But put in the order anyway.”
“Certainly, Mr Crimm. And did you want new grenades on top of that?”
“I did, yes, thank you for reminding me.”
“Of course.” A pause. “We are quite sure that man wasn’t a subscriber, are we?”
Trent scoffs. “What, that guy? Come on.”
*
Trent’s childhood dream was to own a bookshop. He thought of bookshops as places where you could read all day and avoid people, which seemed like paradise. However, his family being who they were, his skills being what they were, the job market for English degree-holders being what it was – he spent a year at odd ends, haphazardly weighing the pursuit of postgraduate studies against attempting to break into the publishing industry, until finally he gave up and took the path he knew had always been there, lying in wait for him. He became a spy.
It was another fifteen years before he revisited the idea of the bookshop, in the wake of his abrupt and unceremonious retirement from the Circus. Cleis was one and a half years old by then, and he knew he must find something, for her sake – he had promised – even though he could not stomach the thought of going out in the cold again. He was mulling over his various options – heaven forfend he wind up in something horrible, like insurance – when his mother dropped by for tea and said peremptorily: “Mae is retiring, don’t you know?”
Mae – the only name anyone ever knew her by – was a veritable battleaxe who ran the Crown and Anchor, a pub that doubled up as the London station for agents of every stripe working in or passing through the city. The stations, by the unspoken rules that governed their universe, were neutral ground; they served every agency and freelancer without question and in turn brooked no conflict within their confines. To move against a station was to move against the combined powers of the rest of the agencies. Nobody had tried it in Trent’s lifetime.
“Oh?” said Trent. He was only partially listening to his mother; most of his attention was focused on trying to get Cleis to keep her yoghurt in her mouth. “Who’s taking over, then?”
His mother fixed him with the glare she had honed on some of the finest intelligencers this side of the Atlantic, as well as his teenage self. “I rather thought you might throw your hat in the ring, dear.”
Cleis mawed at her in surprise and dribbled watery yoghurt down her bib. Trent sighed. “I’ll talk to Mae.”
Mae thought it was a ridiculous notion to run a station as a bookshop. “You wouldn’t catch half that lot dead in a bookshop,” was her take on it. “Who has time for reading these days? And you’ll have to get in books! Actual books!”
“That’s rather the idea, yes,” said Trent. “It can’t be harder than maintaining a liquor licence.”
“Well, it’s not like I was going to hand the tender over to anyone else,” admits Mae. “What will you call it, love?”
Trent considered. “The Independent. Because that’s what it is.”
Even Mae had to admit, a few years in, that it was working out quite well. He’d even managed to sell some books.
*
“How’s the le Carré?” Miss Bowen asks, amid her reshelving. “Are we in trouble?”
“I don’t think so.” Trent is perusing Silverview at the counter, book in one hand, the other on the rifle. “The bookshop’s in East Anglia, and the protagonist hasn’t the first idea how to run it.”
“Oh, well then,” says Miss Bowen. “It will put nobody in mind of us at all. Is it any good? I’m always wary of these late discovery manuscripts. I don’t think I ever got over the disappointment of Go Set A Watchman.”
“It’s unevenly weighted. Makes you miss him at his best.” Trent turns a page. “Still, I’m glad he didn’t go gentle into that good night.”
He tenses as the shop bell rings, then sees that it is Keeley Jones, resplendent in a fluffy yellow coat. “What can we do for you, Miss Jones?”
“Trading in,” sings Keeley. “On Jamie’s behalf.”
Trent takes off his glasses and gives her a forbidding look. “What, has he gone and lost the lot again?”
Keeley winces. “Only some of it.”
Trent sighs. “Let’s get it processed in the back.”
Jamie Tartt is one of the stars of the agency known as the Dogtrack. He’s also aggravatingly cocky and spectacularly laissez-faire with his equipment; Keeley’s always in here, making apologies for him having thrown his Glock into a volcano, or something. Trent has no patience for the likes of Jamie Tartt. One already has so many people trying to kill one in this line of work, but there he is, giving even more people reasons to want him dead.
The back room is behind a reinforced steel door that can only be opened using either Trent’s or Miss Bowen’s fingerprints and a passcode that changes every day. The passcode is in fact a rolling alphanumerical series that progresses through the entirety of Hamlet, and if anyone ever cracks it, Trent will be very impressed by their grasp of Shakespeare. In the back room, Trent lays out the remnants of Jamie Tartt’s mission kit and purses his lips.
“To lose one dart gun, Miss Jones, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.”
“Oh, you needn’t have a go at me, I’m proper mad at him myself. You know what he did last week? Tried to murder Roy Kent. Roy Kent!”
“What, for work?”
“Not even that! Some kind of fucking…pissing contest.” Keeley makes a noise of exasperation. “Some days it’s like we gave a bunch of five-year-olds guns and let them loose on a jungle gym. You know what I mean?”
“I’ll just put it on his tab,” says Trent. “Which is astronomical, by the way.”
“I’ll chivvy the folks at the Dogtrack to send you a cover. Only they’re rushed off their feet this week – you must have heard.”
Trent has heard, but it always serves one in intelligence gathering to pretend to know less than one really does. “What’s happening over there?”
“The Mannions are going to war,” says Keeley, her voice lush with the juice of gossip - another reason why Trent likes having her in the shop. “The whole Dogtrack’s splitting up. Christ, but it’s a mess down there.”
“Who’s Jamie backing?”
“Hasn’t decided. Rupert’s putting it about that the whole agency’s going with him, but word on the street is that Rebecca Welton’s brought in someone from abroad to take him out. They’re saying it’s an American.” She sucks in an excited breath.
“Why would you bring in an American for that?” demands Trent.
“Beats me. It’s going to keep us all on our toes for a bit, to be sure. I reckon it’s some Tom Cruise type, all Mission Impossible Jack Reacher like. But nobody knows for certain.”
“Surely not,” says Trent. “You at least must have some idea, Miss Jones.”
Keeley flutters her eyelashes at him. “Who, me? I’m just a humble secretary.”
“Of course you are,” says Trent. “And I’m just a poor bookseller.”
Keeley slants a sly look at him. “You haven’t seen any Americans around, have you?”
“We get Americans in the store all the time. Just this morning we had a Mrs Glenda Johnson from South Carolina complaining that we don’t have a café in the store.”
“Yeah,” says Keeley, “fairly sure it’s not Mrs Glenda Johnson. Isn’t there a Costa two doors down?”
“Precisely,” says Trent. “Americans.”
They return to the front of the store, the afternoon light streaming across the polished wood floors and touching the book covers. “It really is awful pretty, when the light’s good,” says Keeley, running a hand across a row of Sally Rooneys. “You know what you ought to do? You should do #BookTok.”
“That,” says Trent, “is the single worst suggestion I’ve ever heard.”
Keeley laughs. “Give me a pot of money and some Madeline Miller and I’ll do it for you. I’ll make you so famous, you’ll be beating influencers off with a stick.”
“Just tell the Dogtrack to pay for your boyfriend’s damage.”
Keeley sticks her tongue out as she swings out of the shop. “If you see the American, you’ll tell me first. Won’t you?”
*
“Tell me a story,” says Cleis. They’re curled up in her bed, her tiny frame pillowed against his side.
“You’ve had two already.”
“But I want another.” Cleis looks up at him, her eyes clear and green as the sea. “Tell me about Maman.”
Trent stares up at the glow-in-the-dark stars that speckle her bedroom ceiling. Tell me about a complicated woman, he hears Coralie say in his head. She sounds slightly amused. This is an anachronism, of course. Coralie never lived to see the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey. She would have loved it.
“Where do I start with your mother?”
“Was she very beautiful?”
“Yes. She knew exactly how beautiful she was and what to do with it.”
“Do I look like her?”
“The spitting image.” Even at four, Cleis looks so much like her mother that Trent will sometimes look over at her, in the middle of something mundane like making dinner or brushing her hair, and the resemblance will strike him like a punch to the gut.
Cleis is pleased by this. “What else?”
“Well. She loved old poems, and she was a lot stronger than she looked, and she wasn’t scared of a thing. Never listened to anyone either.”
“Not even you?”
“I like to think she listened to me a bit more than most other people,” allows Trent, “but even that wasn’t very much.”
Cleis kneads her quilt between her small hands. “Why didn’t she come back?”
Trent swallows. “She couldn’t. She had to save everyone.” Including me, he doesn’t add. Instead he says: “She loved you more than anything in the world.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me so. It was the last thing she said, before – ” Trent stops. Cleis is silent.
“Go to sleep now, chouette.”
It’s another hour before she drifts off to sleep proper. He sits in the dark, her hand tucked in his, until she does.
*
“So that’s your subscriber number, which you should quote in all correspondence with us and over the phone when placing orders. Orders placed within less than twenty-four hours of pick-up will be subject to last-minute fee increments. Is that understood, Mr Rojas?”
The lush-haired young man beams at Trent across the counter. “Si, entiendo.”
“Book club notices are posted on the board to the right,” Trent goes on. “Those are for freelancers, I don’t vet them personally and you attend book club at your own risk. This is for your first assignment.” He hands over a copy of Roberto Bolaño’s 2666. Dani Rojas makes to open it; Trent slams it shut. “Don’t open your books in the store.”
“Okay,” says Dani, wide-eyed. He hefts the book experimentally in his hand. “It is very heavy. Does it have a happy ending?”
Trent snorts. “It’s a Bolaño, what do you think?”
Dani nods cheerfully. “I thank you for this, señor. Literature is life.”
“I mean, it actually isn’t,” says Trent, “which is sort of the whole point – but never mind. All the best, Mr Rojas.”
Dani leaves, whistling. He passes Roy Kent on his way in. “He’s not the American, is he?” says Roy, not quite sotto voce to Trent.
“I rather think he’s Mexican,” says Trent. “Are you all still going on about that? I’d have thought you’d have worked it out by now.”
“Nah,” says Roy. “No idea who it is. Mrs Mannion – that is to say, Ms Welton – is keeping her cards close to her chest. Old Rupert’s foaming at the mouth. They say he’s got hold of some kind of leverage, but fucked if we know what.” He studies the noticeboard. “Anything good at book club?”
“What, are you freelancing now?”
“Reckon I might as well, since it’s all going to shit at the Dogtrack.” Roy frowns at A Moveable Feast, Wednesday 8pm; A Gentleman In Moscow, Thursday 7pm; and Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, Thursday 9pm. He points at the last. “Where’s that one again?”
“East Java. I hear Indonesia’s nice this time of year.”
“Right, let’s give it a go then.”
Trent scribbles down a number on a Post-It and hands it to Roy. “Call it and burn it. You know the drill.”
“Cheers.” Roy regards Trent, brows thickly furrowed. “You’ve seen the American, haven’t you?”
“No comment.”
Roy grunts. “Bet you have. You’re just being a prick about it, as usual.”
“Whoever it is, they’re probably out in the community already,” says Trent. “Bravely or stupidly.”
“Stupidly,” decides Roy, stalking off.
*
The problem with The Independent is that, despite Trent’s best efforts and the imminently prophesied demise of brick-and-mortar bookselling, it still continues to be a fairly popular bookshop. Trent has no idea why this is. He puts zero effort into the window displays. He shelves the books in no discernible order, so it is virtually impossible for a customer to locate anything. Sometimes he even leaves terrible TripAdvisor reviews for himself, to discourage casual browsers and tourists. And yet the shop continues to see customers – not subscribers, actual book-loving civilians. People keep popping in to have opinions on how Trent should run his bookshop, to complain that he doesn’t sell stationery or upbraid him for not carrying the latest Stephenie Meyer or insinuate that he should hold poetry readings (of their poems) in the store. It’s a marvel that Trent has gone all these years without shooting anyone in the face.
Still, the shop has regulars somehow. There are the subscribers, and then there are normal people who just show up and spend ages browsing, even though Trent has made sure there is nowhere comfortable for them to sit. There is the elderly gent who pops in nearly every morning to thumb through books and point out printing errors to anyone unfortunate enough to be in proximity. There is the teenage girl who spends afternoons seated cross-legged in an aisle, reading The Sandman in instalments. And then there’s Ted Lasso.
“Why’d you call it The Independent?” Ted wants to know. He’s come back to pick up his copy of Silverview, and despite having achieved this with little incident, has nevertheless once more sought out Trent where he is dusting the shelves.
“Because it is an independent bookstore,” says Trent, who is in fact sweeping for bugs. He finds one planted atop a birding guide and surreptitiously crushes and pockets it. “Can I help you with anything else, Mr Lasso?”
“I was wondering where I might find your Graham Greene.”
“I believe we have The Quiet American somewhere in the shop, if you can bear to wait while I excavate it. Though,” adds Trent, “you are a distinctly unquiet American.”
“You can say that again,” says Ted cheerfully. “You wouldn’t happen to have a copy of The Third Man, would you?”
Most people haven’t even seen The Third Man, let alone are aware that it was based on a Graham Greene novella. “You know your spy fiction, Mr Lasso.”
“Call me Ted, won’t you?”
Trent drags the ladder around the corner and retrieves The Third Man from a high shelf near where the ceiling dips. He looks down, head tilted, at the man beaming up at him from the foot of the ladder. You’ve seen the American, haven’t you? Ted Lasso does not look like the kind of American called in to bring down the head of an agency. He looks like a caricature of an American. He has worn the same pair of khakis every time he has set foot in this shop and it is likely he does so without irony. Yet Trent has the feeling that something is off, the way that shots in The Third Man are framed at a slight angle so that the city looks like a painting knocked askew.
Ted clears his throat. “Kinda staring there, Trent. Makes a fella wonder if he ain’t got toothpaste in his moustache.”
Trent hands over the book. “Why are you here, Ted? Really?”
“First thing I always do when I land in a new place is find a local bookstore,” says Ted brightly. “Tells you a lot about the town, your local bookstore.”
Trent takes off his glasses. “And what, pray, have you learnt from this one?”
“That nothing is where you think it’ll be,” says Ted. “But it sure helps if you ask for directions.”
“Perhaps you should ask him if he wants to get coffee,” says Miss Bowen after Ted has left. “Isn’t that why you hired me? So you could have more of a social life?”
Trent pinches the bridge of his nose. “I hired you so that in the event of a terrorist attack on the shop, we wouldn’t be short-handed.”
“I’m glad you did. It was this or go back to teaching kindergarten.” She raises her voice sharply as a man in a denim jacket emerges from behind a shelf and shuffles towards the door. “Stop right there!”
“Uh,” says the man intelligently. “What’s this about?”
“We have CCTV in the shop, you know,” says Miss Bowen. “So we’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave the shop with Jonathan Franzen stuffed down your trousers.”
The man leers. “Like to come over and check on it yourself, love?”
Miss Bowen meditatively flicks open the boxcutter she was using to trim plastic wrap. “You know, I just might.”
The man hastily removes the Franzen. “All right, no need to get all shirty about it. I’ll just put it back then.”
“The fuck you will, we’re not touching that again,” says Miss Bowen. “You’re going to leave twenty quid on the counter – with your other hand, mind – and then you’re going to back out the door and never come back.”
“Can’t do that in kindergarten, can you,” remarks Trent after their errant customer has complied and made himself scarce.
“There’s something to be said about the job satisfaction in this place,” agrees Miss Bowen.
*
Trent arrives at his parents’ just in time to see his daughter stabbing his father in the front garden.
“Ah! Ah! Alas!” cries his father, sinking dramatically into the grass as Cleis bashes him joyously with a foam sword. “You’ve got me, dread pirate!”
“Did you kill grandpa, chouette?” says Trent as she greets him by thwacking him on the shins with her sword.
“Three times,” says Cleis modestly as she is scooped up.
“She’s a bloodthirsty one.” His father is rising ponderously to his feet, brushing grass stains off his knees. He dotes on Cleis in a fashion that was distinctly lacking in Trent’s own childhood. Trent still cannot get over the incongruity of it – the legendary Chester Crimm, scourge of the Stasi Circle, playing pirates on the lawn with a four-year-old. He does have the eyepatch for it, Trent reflects.
His father turns his good eye towards Trent. “Sell a lot of books today, son?”
“Hilarious,” says Trent shortly. “Where’s mum?”
“Getting her hair done.” They head back into the house. “What’s this I’m hearing about an American at the Dogtrack?”
“Christ, I’m sick of hearing about the American. How’d that even get to you?”
“I was at poker night with the old guard. It’s all everyone’s talking about, the Mannion split.” His father pulls a beer from the fridge and hands it to Trent as Cleis makes for the living room television. “Never liked Mannion. Did you know he tried to get off with your mother, back in the day?”
“Ugh,” says Trent faintly.
“That was before he got mixed up with the Welton girl, of course,” says his father with the alacrity of the generation who can get away with calling Rebecca “the Welton girl”. “The agencies are such a shitshow these days. You know, back in my day – ”
“By all means,” says Trent mordantly, “reminisce about the Cold War, dad. What a splendid time that was.”
“You know what I mean,” his father grumbles. “People just got divorced and got on with things. Didn’t go about involving Americans. You’ve not seen the American, have you? Why are you laughing?”
“I’m just thinking of the rhyme,” says Trent. “From The Scarlet Pimpernel.” At his father’s blank look, he recites: “They seek him here, they seek him there, those people seek him everywhere! Is he in heaven or in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel.”
“Damned!” exclaims Cleis from the doorway. “Damned, damned, damned!”
Trent stares at her, aghast. “Now look what you’ve done,” says his father.
*
Ted isn’t in the shop today, though his bearded friend has put in an appearance. He has only ever been referred to as Beard, and Trent is coming round to the idea that it might actually be the man’s Christian name, because who even knows with Americans? He’s browsing in the back, which is fine, and has been engaged for the past fifteen minutes in a conversation with Jane Payne, which is not so fine.
“Should we say something?” Miss Bowen wonders.
“We are The Independent,” says Trent. “We have a policy of non-interference.”
“I mean, she’s literally toxic. Did you see the photos from her Dubai job?”
“No. Jesus. Why are there even photos?”
Miss Bowen shrugs. “No idea. Everyone’s been sending them around in the group chats. Did not know you could get blood that colour.”
“Miss Payne can do what she likes, provided she does it outside the shop.” Trent pauses. “Though you could ask him if he wants to get coffee.”
“No thank you,” says Miss Bowen. “I have no wish to be stabbed in the pancreas by Jane Payne.”
They are distracted by the shop bell. Trent is surprised and slightly disconcerted to see none other than Rebecca Welton bearing down upon the counter in all her glory. The agency heads rarely visit the shop in person; Trent typically corresponds with Mr Higgins for the Dogtrack’s interests.
“Ms Welton. What can we do for you?”
“I’d like to see your Canterbury Tales special edition,” says Rebecca without preamble.
Trent blinks. “Certainly. This way.”
In the back room, he opens the case where the Chaucer collection is stored. Rebecca begins looking it over critically. She hefts a rocket launcher experimentally, testing its weight. “Which one is this?”
“The Wife of Bath. Gives you five shots.”
“Hm,” says Rebecca approvingly. “I rather like the sound of that.” She inspects the double-barrelled shotgun dubbed the Man of Law and the poison darts of the Pardoner. “I’ll take the lot for the rest of the month.”
“That’s a lot of firepower,” says Trent bluntly. “You’re not trying to kill your husband, are you?”
“I don’t know why you’d say that, Mr Crimm. Though I suspect he might be trying to kill me.”
“Is it all for you? Or is any of it for the American?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Rebecca, expression immaculate. “Do invoice Mr Higgins.”
*
“Darling,” says Trent in long-suffering tones, “please get out of the tree.”
Cleis responds by clambering to a higher branch. She’ll be a while. Trent sighs and puts his hands on his hips, gazing out across the green. It’s a pleasant Sunday morning in the park, though it doesn’t stop him from tracking every jogger and picnicking couple in the vicinity, combing the milieu for hands in pockets and inside coats, calculating distances and trajectories.
His gaze moves across and catches on a lone jogger making his way up the path in their direction. That’s Ted Lasso, he’s sure of it: head down, shoulders hunched against the bite of wind off the water, but there’s no mistaking that moustache. As Trent watches, he raises his head and their eyes meet. He does a very convincing double-take. He’s either genuinely surprised to see Trent here, or his acting skills are commendable. That Trent can’t tell says a lot. Then his face splits into a broad grin.
“Hey there, Trent Crimm, The Independent!”
“Hello, Ted Lasso from America.” Trent eyes Ted as he jogs over, beaming affably. He waves his hand awkwardly. “You…live around here?”
“Oh yeah, Beard and I have digs around here. Like to come out for a run on the weekends.”
“Your vacation is stretching on rather,” Trent informs him.
“Oh, we picked up some work,” says Ted evasively. “Thought we’d stick around, make hay while the sun shines. Though you ain’t got a whole lot of hay around these parts. Not like what I’m used to, at any rate.”
“What sort of work do you do, Ted?”
“Human resources,” says Ted blandly.
Trent removes his glasses and fixes Ted with a searching look. Ted meets his gaze, perfectly amiable. Trent narrows his eyes. Ted doesn’t blink. The whole effect is ruined when Cleis leaps out of the tree unannounced and tumbles onto him.
“Oh for f – ” Trent bites off invective as he staggers. “For the last time, my love, climb down.”
“But this is faster,” says Cleis innocently. She appears to notice Ted, and peers at him curiously as Trent sets her down.
“Well hey there, sweetheart,” says Ted. “What’s your name?”
“Cleis.”
“Fais attention,” says Trent, more sharply than is his wont. Cleis stiffens and tucks herself behind his knee. She always takes her cues from him, and he realises too late his body language has been telescoping an ease with Ted that he should not have brooked. She has never introduced herself to a stranger before.
Ted must pick up on some of that, because he stops short of coming over, instead maintaining the distance between them and crouching down till he is at Cleis’s eye level. “That’s a real pretty name,” he tells her. “It’s from a poem, ain’t it?”
“Sappho.” Trent’s throat feels tight.
“Yeah, that’s the one,” says Ted. “Like a small golden flower. Did you name her?”
“No,” says Trent. “That was her mother. She's – she liked the classics.”
On Trent’s first mission to Morocco, he was paired with a young agent with a French accent and a Classics degree. The former was nearly imperceptible except when she was under pressure; the latter was of no use whatsoever on the mission, any more than Trent’s own English degree was.
“You’re gay, aren’t you?” she said after they had spent four minutes making out pointedly in an alcove to distract the security guards of the Casablanca mansion they were breaking into.
“I’m afraid so,” said Trent, picking a lock.
“That’s a relief. I was worried I was losing my touch.” The lock clicked open, and she whistled appreciatively. “Sing to me, Muse, of the man of twists and turns.”
“The Odyssey? Really?” Trent was secretly delighted that he was no longer the only one pretentious enough to quote classics during a field op. Or Casablanca in Casablanca, even.
She winked at him. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Her name was Coralie Chénier, though they called her “the Owl”. Trent used to envy her this; everyone, despite his best efforts, referred to him as “Chester’s boy”. Then came the Cuba incident, which was such a bloodbath that it earned Trent the moniker “the Jackal”. After that he decided monikers were overrated. At least they matched: the Owl and the Jackal.
Coralie was an orphan – the service preferred either orphans, or those to the manor born, like Trent – and so for the ten years they spent in the field, he was the closest thing she had to next of kin. It was him she told first about Cleis.
“The father?”
She waved a hand dismissively – not in the picture, then. She did not say who it was. Trent knew it to be a crowded field.
“Are you keeping it?”
“I shouldn’t, should I? It’ll take me out of the field for a good stretch.” But he already knew, from the way she rested her hand over her still-flat stomach, that she would.
“I could marry you, if you liked,” he offered.
She laughed. “That’s the sweetest thing any man has ever said to me, darling. But I think I’ll be just fine.”
The last thing she said to him, before she pulled out her comm and charged back into a building rigged with explosives, was: “Promise me you’ll look after her.”
“There must be another way – ”
“I’ve got to do this, Trent,” she said, too gently. “Make sure she knows how much I loved her. All Croesus’ kingdom.”
“I promise – ” but by then she was already gone.
“I’m sorry,” says Ted, bringing Trent back to the present. His hand tightens on the shoulder of Coralie’s daughter.
“Thank you,” he says, for lack of anything better.
“Heck of a poem,” Ted adds.
“Oh yes,” says Trent. I wouldn’t take all Croesus’ kingdom with love thrown in, for her.
#wip ask game#ted lasso#trent crimm#ted x trent#ted lasso/trent crimm#tedependent#rebecca welton#coach beard#keeley jones#roy kent#dani rojas#miss bowen#long post
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After an Angel
They didn’t give Angela the promotion because she was an immigrant. She wasn’t that nice looking but she had a harmless pleasant character and maybe that’s why her parents named her after an angel. She cried after she ran for the promotional role, when she didn’t get it. They gave it to a blond, skinny girl who was four years younger than her, and very rude, and a native speaker, with a guttural accent that Angela often found it hard to understand. And what made it extra confusing was that the girl was new – had only been here for six months – whereas she had been here for several years.
But she made a commitment to keep faith, in her job and the simple position she had in her regular days.
This consisted of her girlfriend and her little flat and her dog and that was about it. Her girlfriend worked at the airport and her hours were therefore weird. She was an immigrant, too. They both, narrowly, narrowly avoided deportation when the nation ‘decided’ to leave the European Union. Simply because they’d both worked and lived here for a long time. And that exit from the Bloc seemed to them the most bizarre ridiculous thing; and though they were careful not to get political with the folks over here, and though they weren’t such political anyway: when Brexit did come up here and there in daily chat – the people were also astonished and angry and hurt that it happened as well. This entire mass of other people had made this wild bail from a continent, without asking whether that was okay with you as well.
Angela got up at six o clock most days and she walked her dog in the park and next to the park was an old church and she liked looking at the atavistic building in different shades of morning; whether it was the brittle winter dawn light, or the sanguine rosy hues of spring.
Then her dog grew tired. And he collapsed, whilst out on the walks. And she would have to pick him up. After taking him to the vet and after the tests they did on him the news didn’t turn out positively and the veterinarian costs were exquisite. And the dog perished later in the year. This death took a strong mental chunk out of Angela’s positivity. She was going to call in to work to request the day off because she didn’t think she could operate in public in a cheerful manner henceforth: but that was what she was forced to do, forced herself to do. And her new ‘boss’ the assistant manager girl, that yellow haired tart, was in a bad, frosty mood herself, for reasons that had nothing to do with morbidity, and was especially mean to Angela throughout the shift. And there were moments when Angela wanted to leave altogether, or go outside onto the rushing main road beyond the supermarket and hurl herself under one of the buses that often hurtled by … or nicely spit in that bitch’s face, or maybe slap her for finer points.
It was with such incidents that she regretted coming over here, to this country, in the first place, so long back. And when she was asleep she dreamed about the old nation. When she spoke on the phone to her mother and father there was that sallow pain of homesickness; alongside the ease of speaking in the proper language; and a wish for the plain simplicity of the ugly city where she’d known girlhood. And like all of us she wished that she had a time machine, and could head back to a different chapter: and even if she couldn’t have known that she had gone back in time, if she were to reset her life back in the past, she wouldn’t be here, and she would have known other things, been to different places.
And then something totally unrelated to anything else, to any of the above, happened outside the supermarket. Whilst Angela was on a shift.
A boy got stabbed in the car pack. In bare daylight – and Angela saw it happen.
It made the news. Yeah – some young man got stabbed with a knife from another young man. It was over some grudge that nobody knew anything about. But, seeing that incident. To have somebody nearly die [and the boy didn’t die but it was a close case indeed; he needed to be taken to the hospital and it was swell luck for him that the hospital was only a mile and a half away from where the attack took place] was as bad as anything she had known before.
She came from a rough school whence a girl and she remembered hating when the boys fought and how they seemed to deduce such credence over something so barbaric. They thumped and kicked as if it they were actions to be proud of …
Angela was the person that called 999 for the ambulance to come and help the boy. The next day, reporters came from across the city, scrounging for interviews. They wanted to speak to Angela. She didn’t want to speak to them. That image, from yesterday: of the boy upended after the blade was plunged in to him, was replaying in her mind, over and over. It was as if Angela didn’t expect to witness such things in real life and that only such stories were read about in newspapers, behind the safeguard of cheap paper and crackly black ink. And she spoke to her girlfriend about it. And her girlfriend hugged her lots and she filled up the hot water bottles before bed time just as she always did. And there were still those tinny voices from Mum and Dad, from back in the nowhere town that she should never have left. And she still had the minimum wage job. She was lovable and cheerful. And she wished that stabbing had never happened. It was as if the stabbing were a punishment for ever coming here … and she had no time machine to undo that, either.
#writeblr#creative writing#prose#spilled thoughts#spilled ink#writers on tumblr#stories#short fiction#tumblr writers#fiction#short story
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https://youtu.be/FJNnSlTZE9E
She makes good points about corporate feminism and wokism don't excuse bad scripts.
Thank you for the link. There are a few things I agree with, especially when she says the movies feel like "watching female characters stand up at the expense of their male counterparts" and "wokenism has become a shield for bad television and film, and sexism has become the justification when a female-led film doesn't do well".
But there are certain things I disagree with, especially her complaints about Captain Marvel (what can I say, I love that film). I don't understand why she cherry-picks certain things of the movie while ignoring everything else. She whines that Carol doesn't show emotion during the movie - but she doesn't say that she had been indoctrinated by the kree to hide her feelings + the longer she's on Earth and away from the kree the more lighthearted she is, she smiles, she jokes around, she's a little shit (affectionate)...
Also the OP claims the movie treats men like crap but she doesn't mention that Carol teams up with Fury and Talos in the end and they all, along with Maria, save the Skrulls and defeat the Kree. Guess she doesn't mention that because it refutes her argument.
And then she tries to claim Wonder Woman is a good example of a female-led character movie.... 🤦♀️
Anyway, what I usually find in these videos is that the focus is so highly on whether or not the women deserve to be there in the first place (she keeps saying some of those female characters are just there because they're women... what does that mean?), the level at which these fans judge the women is so precise and surgical but they don't do the same with men, the scrutiny is insane.
Like in AoU the only thing she mentions is that Natasha loves Bruce which is a huge disservice to her character in that movie: she's traumatized by Wanda, she recovers and she's taken by Ultron, she feigns weakness and leads the entire team to Sokovia, she kicks Bruce's ass and refuses to leave and she's willing to die in order to protect everyone else. And the only thing that matters is that she kisses Bruce? Is that the failure of the movie or those watching it?
She keeps mentioning all modern movies and shows do it wrong and the women feel weak but that is such a blanket statement that I find it hard to take it seriously. I'm watching Daredevil now and the women in this show are wonderful, they have arcs of their own, their personalities feel real, they're as well-written as the men. Not to mention there are other countries making movies and shows as well... just leaving it out there, watching how other countries do these things would help these folks a huge deal.
So while I agree with her that trying to lift female characters by portraying the men as weak and misogynistic is a huge insult to both men and women, sometimes it feels that for the viewers they first see a woman and then a character and they're so much more critical of her than a man.
This is not to say women can't be criticized of course, I do it all the time lol, but blanket statements that try to put all women in the same place and actively refuse to first check the nuance and the context (if there is one) don't help anyone. Surely we can say that the way Wanda is written in WandaVision is nowhere near what the Loki writers did to Sylvie, right? Or that Captain Brexit was not a well-written female character and TFA didn't do a good job with rep for women but TWS was brilliant with Natasha?
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wdym economics? like not enough tickets being sold? but a lot of the shows were sold out already
Even if shows were sold out it might be that touring Asia was no longer financially viable.
I don’t know how much you follow other artists but I’ve read a lot recently about folks who are either touring internationally at a loss or just not being able to do it.
Caroline Palochek is a pretty successful artist and her European tour was at a financial loss.
A couple months ago Easy Life cancelled their North American tour and tweeted a few times about the fact that it was just no longer financially viable. Touring North America is a bit different than Asia since there are no internal borders, but I have seen quite a few British artists recently cancel North American tours due to costs.
Benjamin Woods, from Golden Dregs said in March that “So with fees, funding and tour support, we still have a deficit of £7,500, which we are currently trying to fundraise.”
Shana Cleveland (guitarist for La Luz) is doing a solo tour and spoken about how she’s had to be so frugal to make it work: “But for this album, I’m just realising, like, ‘Oh man, I’m going to have pay musicians’. You know, because I don’t have the band, it’s a solo album. So, I’ve got to pay everybody, which means I might not get made because the sizes of the rooms I can play with this album are so much different than the size I can play with La Luz.”
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I’m not sure how many tickets were on sale in Asia, let’s say there are 40,000 though all at £45 each. That’s £1,800,000. 10% gets eaten up in booking fees. Anywhere between 5% and 35% in tax. So let’s say you’ve got 80% left which would be £1,440,000. (From what I’ve read though, none of those venues had sold full capacity, so the figure we’re working with is probably smaller).
Then you hire your equipment, pay your transport (flights to get there, buses to haul you, your crew and all your stuff around). Then you need the crew to set up the equipment, manage it, plus you need people to manage the crew and the tour. You also need everyone to eat and drink while you’re out on tour - you have to get everyone and everything there and you have to pay everyone while you’re there. You pay your crew the full tour - not just days you’re performing and you pay them for rehearsals etc. Louis’ Asian leg would be at least 12 days, since it was due to start on 17 April and end on 27 April. This article from 2017 goes into great detail.
Touring Asia, like touring Europe, means internal borders, so that’s also going to mean different visas for each country you visit for everyone on your crew and different local taxes.
You then have others who take a cut of the gross revenue - venues, managers, organisers etc. In 2017 the expectation was that the promoter took 15% of what was left. The manager another 15-20%.
All of those figures are pre-covid/Brexit estimates. I’m no expert on this but there is quite a lot of info out there about the expenses of touring, especially the further afield from your home country you go.
All of that to say that the combination of Brexit, Covid and the current economic crisis will have exacerbated an endeavour that’s already financially difficult so I think it’s more than feasible that it was cancelled due to economics.
#anon#like I said we don’t know#I do think there are other potential reasons for cancelling#that are way worse#but I don’t think we can assume it’s not economic#just because we think tickets sold
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Aye so... My country has been moved to the second highest terrorist threat.
Honestly saw this coming and said this was going to be the case sooner rather than later given how Brexit has systematically put what little lasting peace we have had the last 25 years into contention.
But yeah, being right or at least looking as such. It's not a good feeling.
I by no means want to sound like I am over hyping stuff. But like I don't need or want a return to bombs and bullets flying over my head. But it feels like it's so close to coming back and that doesn't scare me the same way it used to. It hits way harder and way different.
When I was younger. I could get through my day knowing I lived an area that was considered safe space for people of my background. Yes, venturing outside of that area was a bit of a catch 22 if I needed to worry about getting attacked or caught up in something. But at least I knew better where the safe zones where.
With 25 years passing since a ceasefire has happened. Folks like myself that don't want a return to violence ventured forward to create community shared spaces. Places we could just find a level of normalcy as we worked out what the future was meant to be without violence. But now, I live in one of these spaces and I low key worry I am at risk in the future of being burnt out of my house. This space was traditionally a space that was heavily occupied by the other side of the community but that began to shift. But there's still extremists that live around in every community. So who's to say if things don't escalate, that it doesn't result in me being at risk. I dunno.
I worry what I say or the concerns I express sound dramatic. But I dunno. It's hard to explain without feeling like I am talking about talltales and fantasy. Like how do you explain you grew up in a war zone that existed inside the developed 1st world county. Like that makes no sense. Like the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the UK sat there for 30 years either actively contributing to the violence or ignoring it. And what was the result? Well I get to have a backstory and memories that if you try to explain to folks not from here. Sounding like I am telling lies or exagerations. It leaves me feeling a little disheartened I guess.
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Review: Sandi Thom’s new single ‘Revolution Anthem (Festival of the Oppressed)’ offers political criticism amidst folk-rock intensity
As a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in her own league, the Scottish-based powerhouse Sandi Thom has for many years run in the face of traditional music trends, with her most-known song saying it all in the title alone: ‘I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair)'. Since first coming to prominence in the mid-noughties, her work has since been appreciated across the globe, making headlines and breaking expectations with everything she’s done.
Her newest single ‘Revolution Anthem (Festival of the Oppressed)’ offers just as much of a statement in its title as a lot of her works, boasting an anthem relating to the recent geo-political turmoil. The paired-back, acoustic and folk blended sound is one that you’d perhaps find unexpected to be matched with such a bold statement, outing on the state of the world without any shielding to hide behind, and yet somehow it makes the meaning hit that bit harder than ever before. Through an acapella introduction of just Sandi’s isolated, rich vocals, the track is immediately brought near and dear to all, personal and resonant as her lingering lines make their mark: ‘it has to be time for a change.’
It’s not long before the opening verse shifts the momentum, booming through clapped beats; tribal sounding drums and a simple but intricately plucked acoustic guitar, championing instruments known for their tenderness and instead turning them on their heads for something unavoidably in-your-face. Sandi’s words are just as integral, soaring through low-tones and higher runs, equally torn between intimacy and strength. With heightened volumes and resounding impact, ‘Revolution Anthem (Festival of the Oppressed)’ continues to hurtle into your eardrums with a sound and message that won’t be backing down, determined to be heard. Through layers of vocal harmonies that serenade through the chorus alongside backing ooh’s and hums, the power behind Sandi’s words is not lost, feeling both haunting and striking all at once. The percussion also simmers out, allowing just claps and acoustics to take centre stage, a powerful intermission that’s lesser in instruments but more profound in other ways.
Perhaps the most important part of it all is the message she has to share though, connecting with all of the disenfranchised and those that are struggling under unjust systems without a voice to bring about change themselves. As Sandi shares that songwriters and artists have the opportunity to be a mouthpiece for the ‘vox populi’, it’s clear that this new single is all of that and more. Pulling references from the French revolution, the Russia/Ukraine War and Brexit, as well as name dropping world leaders such as Donald Trump and blatantly calling out former leaders such as Liz Truss, Sandi lets her opinions be known without fear of upsetting anyone that may disagree. Through lines like the staple hook ‘So, it's time for a change raise your voice to the air, time for a change Revolution is here’, she brings out the built-up tensions within us all, marking the start of an uproar ready for change. If you can relate or you’re just eager for a sound that’s uniquely folk-rock, then you won’t want to miss out on listening to the entire track for yourself here.
Written by: Tatiana Whybrow
Photo Credits: Unknown
// This coverage was supported and created via Musosoup, #SustainableCurator.
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Stormont Deadlock: Impact on NI's Future
Stormont Still Stalemated: Is the Craic Ever Gonna Get Sorted?
Yo, NI crew, let's talk real. Remember when May felt like ages ago and we were all hyped for a fresh start at Stormont? Turns out, politics is more like a dodgy kebab – messy, unpredictable, and leaves you feeling kinda gross the next day.
So, here's the deal: the Assembly just fumbled the speaker vote again, meaning Stormont's still shut down tighter than a chippy on Christmas Day.
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton Harris said:
“It is disappointing that the Assembly was unable to elect a speaker and restore the Northern Ireland Executive today.
“The return of a locally elected, accountable and effective devolved government is the best way to govern Northern Ireland.
“However, in the absence of an Executive, the Government will proceed with a pragmatic and reasonable approach to support Northern Ireland.”
What's the Hold-up?
Well, picture this: imagine your mates won't let you watch the final because one of them wants the telly on Peppa Pig instead. That's kinda what's happening. The DUP, Northern Ireland's biggest unionist party, is refusing to play ball unless the whole Brexit bizzness – specifically the Northern Ireland Protocol – gets sorted.
Basically, they reckon it messes with our connection to the UK. Sinn Féin, the other big dogs, disagree and want things as they are. So, instead of choosing a speaker and getting on with the boring but important stuff like fixing potholes and funding hospitals, they're stuck in a stand-off like two wee lads arguing over who's next on the Xbox.
What Does this Mean for Us?
Well, buckle up, it ain't all sunshine and rainbows. Without a proper government, Northern Ireland is stuck in limbo. Imagine trying to sort out your uni loan while juggling three part-time jobs – that's basically how things are running right now.
The cost-of-living crisis is biting harder than a vampire on garlic bread, healthcare queues are longer than a queue for Ed Sheeran tickets, and businesses are holding off on investing because, let's be honest, who wants to put money into a place where everyone's arguing?
So, What's Next?
The clock's ticking on this one, folks. Unless the DUP and Sinn Féin find their chill zone and figure things out by October, we're heading back to the polls. Not exactly the election day sesh we were hoping for, right? Plus, who knows what kind of political landscape we'll be facing then.
The Bottom Line?
This Stormont stalemate ain't just about suits-in-suits bickering. It's about our jobs, our healthcare, our future. It's time for the bigwigs to stop acting like sulky teenagers and remember why they're there in the first place – to serve us, the people. So, let's make our voices heard, NI squad.
Hit up your MLAs, tweet your frustrations, and remind them that we deserve better than this political purgatory. Let's show them that the craic will never get sorted if they keep acting like a bunch of squabbling toddlers. Peace out.
Byline
I was married to a Northern Ireland lass for 20 years, visited a few times, and feel these silly political statemates have gone on too long now.
Sources: THX News, Northern Ireland Office, The author & The Rt Hon Chris Heaton-Harris MP.
Read the full article
#DUPandSinnFéinstandoff#NorthernIrelandAssemblydeadlock#NorthernIrelandeconomicchallenges#NorthernIrelandhealthcarecrisis#NorthernIrelandProtocoldebate#StormontAssemblyelections#Stormontpoliticalstalemate#UKgovernmentBrexitimpact#UKpoliticaluncertainty#UK-NIpost-Brexitrelations
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I actually could have been British. Well, depends on if it would have still been me, if my dad would have married some British woman when he grew up, instead of my mom. I mean, who knows, right? Assuming there are souls, you know, who determines when a particular soul comes to Earth, in which body, at which time, etc?
My grandpa had a job in the UK for a few years, and the family lived there then. He could have kept living there if he'd wanted to. They could have become subjects of the crown - I don't like that, I hate that the Brita still have a monarchy, seriously, you deserve better than that. Gods know America is fucked in many ways, and I suppose you could say we have our own monarchs, only they wear suits, rather than crowns, and are corporate officers and/or politicians, rather than royals. Regardless, monarchy is abhorrent, and all human beings deserve better than to labor under the wretched, filthy yoke of the incestuous tyrants.
Back to the main point; noting my hatred for monarchy, and granting that the British social safety net is shit, it's still better than the American one, and, at least until Brexit happened, travel from Britain to Europe was easy-peasy, and affordable. As shit as Britain is politically, I'd be freer as a Brit than an American, in most respects.
I don't think I'll ever be able to leave North America, and I'm not even sure I'll be able to leave the USA again in my life, if things remain the same as they are now. Not legally, anyway, not affordably.
I don't really know where I want to be, ultimately. Hell, the most radical places in the world are either in deserts, or jungles, and I don't know the languages of the folks no matter where they are, and they tend to be poor, while, as I am now I wouldn't bring anything to the table to improve the collective lot. Somehow, the colder places in the world seem to be among the most... perhaps not "conservative", per se, but "established". What is with the lack of anarchy in the cold, anyway? Why would people in the cold bother with who's in charge, rather than simply focusing on having enough and staying warm? Poppycock and madness, that people in the cold should bother with statesmen. Regardless, complaints will not melt away these states, nor freeze the literal climates of Chiapas or Rojava, where I shall never set foot, in any case.
I don't like feeling trapped on a continent, in a country, and particularly within a small area of that country.
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Every single prediction that the remain campaign made has come true.
Boris said that any deal wouldn't come with a lowering of British food stands and here we are, we banned exports of live cattle because it was too cruel but now we are going to allow importing them. With British standards will have to lower so that British farmers can compete with cheap Australian imports.
#uk politics#veganism#vegan#boris johnson#europe#animal agriculture#brexit#vegan for the animals#brexit means brexit folks#climate crisis#cattle farming
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Saturday Morning Coffee
Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️
We’ve been home for a week now and it’s been really nice to sleep in our own bed!
Now, if we could get Cocoa to sleep past 5:30AM I’d be thrilled. 😃
I hope you have a nice cup of coffee or tea ready and I hope you enjoy the links.
CNN
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has refused to surrender, and called Vladimir Putin “deeply mistaken” following the Russian president’s address describing his actions as betrayal.
I heard about this as I was crawling in bed. I hope the Wagner Group is able to destabilize Putin and end the war in Ukraine.
Probably too much to hope for. 🙁
iamthatis • Reddit
I wanted to address Reddit’s continued, provably false statements, as well as answer some questions from the community, and also just say thanks.
I love this openness from Christian Selig. If folks don’t know, Christian tapes his conversations with Reddit folks. It’s been very interesting to read bit the transcript he’s shared. It’s clear they have lied.
I just wish Christian had posted this all to a weblog so it would have a more permanent home. Who knows what’s going to happen with his subreddit.
Platformer
After a bruising week of protests and locked-down forums, things started to get back to normal Tuesday on Reddit, as — oh wait, what’s this?
Subreddit moderators are doing all they can to screw things up on Reddit. I applaud their effort.
Polygon
If you want to watch pop culture eat itself, go see The Flash, a movie that starts out as a sprightly superhero adventure, then dissolves into a self-referential requiem for the DC Universe.
I’m torn about seeing this movie given all the hubbub surrounding Ezra Miller but I really want to see Michael Keatons older Batman!
Trisha Gee
These days, distributed version control systems like Git have “won the war” of version control. One of the arguments I used to hear when DVCSs were gaining traction was around how easy it is to branch and merge with a VCS like Git. However, I’m a big fan of Trunk-Based Development (TBD), and I want to tell you why.
I’d imagine most folks I work with today have no clue how we used to work. I didn’t use git for version control full time until around 2014 I’d imagine? I found it terribly frustrating to work with at first but know I’m fine with it.
Anywho, up until 2014 I’d worked with so many different version control systems. I’d imagine I worked with CVS the longest and we had one main branch — trunk — and everyone committed directly to it. Yes, breaking the build was definitely frowned upon so you had to be very careful about your commits!
LA Weekly
When North Carolina Gov. Patrick McCrory signed House Bill 2 into law, I wonder if he was thinking long-range about what the result might be. I can’t see him and his staff wondering out loud if their thick-skulled, cracker logic might result in Bruce Springsteen not only canceling his upcoming show in Greensboro, depriving the state of revenue and its residents of a Springsteen concert, but inspiring Mr. Boss to issue a press release that more people have read than will ever peruse House Bill 2.
Henry Rollins seems to be a really great dude. Part punk, part philosopher, always interesting to listen to or read.
The Guardian
Seven years after the Brexit referendum, the proportion of Britons who want to rejoin the EU has climbed to its highest levels since 2016, according to a new survey.
I mean, duh! The British version of MAGA didn’t work out so well. It’s been terrible for so many. I hope they rejoin the EU.
Hendrick Motorsports
The NASCAR Next Gen Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 was a hit from day one in Le Mans, among fans, media and even other competitors. And it was fast on track, consistently putting down lap times that bettered cars in the GT class. The car ran near the top of the GT field for more than 20 hours until a drive line issue sidelined the team for more than an hour. Overall, the car was running at the finish, completed 285 laps on the 8.4-mile circuit and finished 39th in the 62-car field.
This car is an absolute beast and looked out of place at Le Mans. It would also look out of place on a NASCAR track. It is a beautiful car with some really excellent engineering. Oh, yeah, and it is super fast! Good old American V8 horsepower under the hood.
I kind of wish I’d been more of a car guy when I was younger. My Dad certainly is and has built some beautiful cars in his time. His ‘37 Chevy Coup Street Rod is stunning and he used to drag race a 454 powered ‘51 Anglia.
I had the opportunity to learn a lot but didn’t. If I could do it today I’d love to be a mechanic or engineer for a NASCAR, IndyCar, or F1 team. I’d love to specialize in engines. I do find them fascinating and would love to rebuild one again. I rebuilt a Chevy small block in High School my senior year. Yeah, I took auto shop because I wanted to do something “easy.” 😃
Cadillac Racing
After 21 years, Cadillac Racing marked our return to the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 10—11 with our highest finish ever in front of a record audience of 325,000 spectators. Our No. 2 V-Series.R led laps for the first time in Cadillac history and finished on the podium in 3rd, with the No. 3 just behind in 4th, and the No. 311 fighting back for 10th in class.
There’s an article on Jalopnik that includes a video of one of these cars doing a bump start and it sounds mean. It instantly made me think of the Batmobile for some reason.
Now, let’s get more American manufacturers back in NASCAR. Cadillac would be a super interesting entry! I think Dodge is an obvious entry for NASCAR Cup, Xfinity, and Truck series given their history of legendary cars like the Challenger and their RAM trucks.
Cadillac would be super cool to see in NASCAR Cup racing but it may be too lowbrow for them? 🤣
Traveler Dreams
Renting an RV and embarking on a road trip across America can seem like more of a fantasy trip than a real thing you actually do. But you can truly make it a reality. And if you do, it can turn into a thrilling and liberating experience that will leave you with unforgettable memories. Here’s why you should take the plunge.
This is something I dream about all the time but I can’t quite get Kim convinced we need to sell everything and go all in on the RV lifestyle.
As a compromise we’d like to acquire a smaller RV and do some two week to one month excursions to see if we like it. It would also be great for week long camping trips with the entire family.
Maybe someday it’ll be a reality? 🤞🏼
Business Insider
When former NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino was named Twitter’s next CEO last month, advertisers breathed a sigh of relief.
I don’t expect Ms. Yaccarino to last very long at Twitter. I think my original quesstimate was six months but I could see it lasting as long as a year.
Musk is too much of a control freak. The kind of boss I’d hate working for.
The best piece of advice I ever got from my VP of Engineering and CTO at Pelco was “You have to convince people your vision is the right way to go so they follow. You won’t get their best work if you’re a tyrant.” It was something like that. Basically be a leader, not a bully.
Teri Kanefield
This blog post is meant to be read in order. Later answers are shorter because they rely on the information presented in the earlier answers.
This is a really nice piece if you’re following along with the TFG Top Secret documents prosecution. Dude is such a knucklehead and honestly believes he has magical powers to declassify things with his mind. Dumbass.
The New York Times
The engineers reminded him of their commutes. The working parents reminded him of school pickup times. Mr. Medina replied with arguments he has delineated so often that they have come to feel like personal mantras: Being near each other makes the work better. Mr. Medina approached three years of mushy remote-plus-office work as an experiment. His takeaway was that ideas bubble up more organically in the clamor of the office.
I believe with all my heart CEO’s like this are real control freaks and must have the adoration of their people surrounding them at all times. I can have these ah-ha moments, Slack someone, and fire up a zoom call to have the same conversations. It’s just not face to face in a building I have to commute to.
If our company demanded everyone come to the office, of course I’d comply, but I really don’t believe it’s necessary.
Just my horrible opinion.
Assigned Media
A federal court heard both sides during a trial where trans youth, their parents, and their doctors challenged a law banning gender affirming care in Arkansas. The court found that the law violated the right to due process and to equal treatment under the constitution, and ordered the law struck down because Arkansas failed to demonstrate a compelling state interest justifying the unequal treatment.
We really need the courts to continue overturning these idiotic and dangerous laws.
You cannot force people to be someone they are not and denying them healthcare because they’re different than you is barbaric.
Apparently Meta’s Project 92 is going to federate with a limited set of Mastodon instances, pay them, and allow them to display Meta ads in exchange for a cut.
Embrace and extend. Amirite?
Let’s see how this plays out.
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Personal Experience [From Italia].
So, I just got back from Milan, where I stayed for a full week. Had a fantastic time. And would encourage anybody to go and visit.
There was one thing that happened whilst I was there, that I wanted to write about. It happened via my literary Tumblr blog – through the messaging system on there. Here’s what occurred:
I had been out and about in the town and had really enjoyed it. And when I got back to my hostel I wrote some stuff on my blog; a fairly simple post about how I loved the vibrant zeal of Europe. And whenever I return to the Bloc, I always think that it was just so stupid that the UK left it. That Brexit was such a naïve disaster. I mentioned that I was Scottish in the post; and also said that I wasn’t overtly nationalistic as a Scotsman or Briton: only that I admired the rich energy of Europe and hoped the United Kingdom would reconnect with the Bloc in the future.
A few hours later I saw I had some messages. From this other person, who had no profile photo, and was only called ‘Anonymous’. He’d sent me like fifteen messages. (I actually don’t know if the person was even male, but I’m guessing it was a man.)
The 15 messages were snippets of this most hideous garble. He opened by saying, “Go back to the United Kingdom you Scottish bastard! And stay there! Don’t bring Milan into your political views.” And then he was calling me a “kilt-wearing, tartan, alcoholic Scot. Get some experience, you drunk arsehole!” Alongside saying that Europe belonged to the “Nazis in Germany; and that Europe was controlled by them”.
I don’t remember the exact lines, but, man: it was just staggeringly offensive. [And also shit writing. Lols.]
Anyway. I was really surprised and it was a bit upsetting. Because I’ve never in my 30 years experienced any racist abuse for being Scottish. ^ And as I mentioned above, I originally said in the post that I wasn’t a nationalist, per se. I still love Scotland, but, umm, when I’m writing stories, novels, poems, essays, personal writing, I’m not usually wearing a kilt.
I called up my friend Henry after I’d gotten the hate mail. He was helpful about it and said he’d had similar experiences across his life. Henry is Scottish too. But he has an English accent (because his parents are English), and just because that’s how he talks. He said he got a lot of shit for being English in school, and … he’s from Scotland. That actually sounded way worse than my experience in this case.
The incident didn’t ruin my holiday by any means. I was hurt for a few hours and I posted on Tumblr again about what’d happened, and received this array of supportive messages from folks that follow me. Which cheered me up a bit.
I suppose I couldn’t understand why somebody would attack me for being Scottish. It sounded like this man, whoever he was, was basing his knowledge of Scots on the Simpsons character Groundskeeper Willie. This cartoon character is not offensive – because it’s a joke. It’s the Simpson’s writers making fun of the stereotype and is not meant to be taken seriously, and that’s what I thought about it when I grew up watching this beloved sitcom.
I’ve worked with many people from other nations across my life. And I’m often interested in their language: I try to learn their words for English words, just out of a curiosity in linguistics. And I ask them questions about what it’s like in their country.
Moreover, when I went to university, I had loads of friends who were non-UK, and they’re still my mates. From Germany, Singapore, Czechia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, Polska, America – all sorts of places. I just liked them and got on with them. And they helped me out if I had problems, and me them.
(Just for the record: I am notoriously clumsy when it comes to trying to speak other languages. Or just plain bad, rather. For instance, there was a time when I was at a wedding in Poland. And was introduced to this woman. And I held out my hand to her and said, “Dziękuję!”, which means “Thank you.” She just blinked. It could’ve been worse: she could have laughed. And it was super embarrassing, but ultimately only funny.)
Hmm. In a tiny way I can now understand why people get so offended over racism. Of course, my thing was only small in terms of the horrors that other folks suffer across the globe.
Going back to the England thing again: my father is English, so I always found that anti-England stuff insulting as well. I love England too and many people who have influenced me were from there (William Shakespeare, John Lennon, Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, George Orwell, Pete Townshend, William Wordsworth, Graeme Greene … Paul Scholes. There are many). The whole point is that I adore the creative minds from England.
There was this other occasion – just as final example – where one of my mates was coy about ‘coming out’ to me as being gay. And he finally told me, shyly, after a few months. Then asked me what I thought about it. I said, “I don’t care.” And he just laughed because it was a refreshing answer.
The main conclusion is that bigotry should be eradicated through knowledge. Having a wealth of knowledge is the most crucial thing. I hope education spreads across the world.
I suppose I could’ve written this essay and posted it to that bigot who attacked me anonymously online.
But I figured a quotation was more relevant for the mood I was in at the time. So I just wrote back to him:
“I am the Walrus. Yoo goo coo choo.”
And he hasn’t responded with anything since.
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the point about throwaway terms is very fucking valid like i am fucking sick of seeing stuff about intrusive thoughts when it is just impulsive like intrusive thoughts are like "what if i poured boiling water on my cat" (not a literal example but that kind of thing) and they fucking suck and you feel horrific not just being silly and goofy
but i think the thing about gen z not being able to define itself it interesting as well because with social media there is no one thing you sit down as a generation and watch or take part in. there isnt really a top of the pops or a similar culturally defining piece of media other than say tiktok. but its also very easy to look at tiktok and see it as the face of gen z when i find most of the time it represents a small demographic of rich americans as opposed to the majority of gen z. like as a British person social media is very clearly dominated by americans
i also think there is something to be said about criticising gen z for being critical of older generations but consuming the media when we as a generation have been constantly harped on for being shit, have dealt with social media and being conscious of every political happening all at once from the age of 12, the housing crisis, brexit, the shortcomings of the education system, covid, and i could probably go on but all before even leaving school? and yet we are the generation that gets the piss taken out of us? like yes we fucking suck but also like come on. im not trying to say look at us we have it so hard because we didnt deal with world war two or the cold war or the 2008 financial crisis or 9/11 but we were also like 14 and witness to war nearly being started because of twitter and laying in bed at 15 watching black people being violently murdered and 16 trying to sleep after being told on the internet that if we dont post about everything happening ever you are a bad person, but our problem is not being able to define ourselves culturally? or trying to find an alternative to the present by looking back to the past that has been glorified by previous generations? like i dont think i can explain how mentally damaging waking up to find out that a bill allowing oil drilling in the arctic which will destroy the earth has been passed but still having to get up, go to school and pretend that fucking a levels matter before having any sort of life achievements is
sorry if this comes off as preachy but im just a little tired of older generations being seeming incapable of empathy sometimes - 🐸
No, you’re right! I mean, it’s very easy for us older folks who have done most of our growing up already to look back and say “they should be doing X or y” when….if that were true then we wouldn’t have “failed” before y’all even came along, haha. I think when we criticize gen z, there are two types of criticism:
1) where it’s just old people being afraid of change. Like, espcially socio-politically. It’s clear that the systems we have no HAVE FAILED CATASTROPHICALLY otherwise there wouldn’t be a recession, so much fascism etc. and it’s time for something radically different and older people don’t get the urgency of that as much as younger people do. Which is a cheap kind of criticism. Like, if you won’t support the kids then get the fuck out of their way. Cuz they’re gonna change the future with or without you. You’re just making it slower/harder for them.
2) criticism that recognizes some gen z movements as overcompensation or over correction of something that we ourselves have tried to fix before. It’s no huge secret that every generation develops its beliefs, aesthetic preferences, political ideals, etc in response to what came before it. Not just gen z. We millennials did it, too. And so did gen X and boomers…I think all the way back to at least the Reagan administration, here in the US anyways, things have been…on the downhill HAHA. and each generation tries to do something about. Then the next one comes along and is like “alright they tried X and failed, what if we try Y?” And sometimes we recognize the younger generations mistakes cuz we have made them, too and we just wanna be like “bro, no, no. Trust me. That’s not gonna work. You’ll see it when you’re older and you’re looking back at the generation after you too.” Those criticisms, I think, are fair. And might even help future kids if they listen.
But, at least for me, and I won’t speak for my entire generation or for those before me, my criticism doesn’t mean I don’t empathize. One of my fav Notes tracks is “People” purely because of the “stop fucking with the kids.” Young people have always been the face of change. They are usually the demographic that votes one party in and the other out. Conservatives always win only when they oppress the youth and appeal to the fear of old people. They’re on the edge of fashion, art, pop culture. So, I know better than to be dismissive of young people! Never! It’s just, sometimes I see the mistakes happening and I’m like “ohhh noooo stop before it’s too late” haha.
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Low but not for long.
A personal update, I managed to get a wee day out earlier this week, mum and I went out to the Clyde valley on Wednesday to pop into Dobbie's and Silver birch garden centres. I picked up a couple of things in Dobbie's but oh my Silver birch was like a treasure trove.
It is always decorated so well, they have such lovely decorations and we/I ended up burning a serious hole in the bank account. I just can't believe how talented some crafts folk are and I know a lot of things are made en masse but my there are some beautiful things. Every year when we unearth our Christmas decs I am just stunned by the things we have, nothing to do with the cost of them but the craftsmanship is just something I adore.
Thursday was a bit manic because we were due to have a couple of electricians come round and do bits but they were running late and I needed the electricity on for my singing lesson. It was just so close to the grain time wise, plus it's amazing how much stuff one bookcase that had to be emptied can carry, I felt like I was sitting in the back of a charity shop with things out for sorting.
I've been a bit low a few times although thankfully not for long, just dipping into it and usually only when I am tired. It's just waiting for the consultant to get back to me with my MRI results in so stressful, I am going to send another email on Monday to remind him I exist, but Is entirely possible that there are no real answers for my back pain on the MRI and the whole exercise would be pointless, or there could be an answer but nothing can be done regardless. I think I would prefer the latter because I drive myself crazy wondering why I have had this pain kissing my shoulder blades for the past 4 years that just isn't going away.
Plus I've done something to my knee, or my hEDS has, it's been sore and swollen for around a month and I've reached the point where I think I'm going to have to talk to a doctor about it, just to make sure that I don't make it worse really. It's pretty bearable but walking up the stairs can be difficult.
I haven't had any more news about my application for disability aid since a lassie phoned me to ask about uploading more evidence, I don't really have many test results or things to show though. I just told them that they could ask my doctor about the medical part and my mum about the rest to prove my case. There's so little help for folks with hEDS that I really have nothing to show them. I just bumble on as best I can, which means painkillers when I need them and a wheelchair mum bought me so I can get about bigger places. Even the Physio isn't much help because I keep saying it's my upper back that's sore and I just hear about Core exercises which were great for my lower back but do fuck all for my upper back. They did give me some advice for my shoulder subluxations but I can't use the kinetic tape which I found to be so helpful but I am allergic to the glue.
I really just exist in the living room during the day unless it's nice weather and my back can tolerate me sitting out on the Oyster seat we have. Or if mums free to take me out on a day trip but that also depends on how I am feeling, my Vestibular migraines, although the meds help the vertigo, still play havoc with me at times and travelling can be difficult.
Still at this point with the shitshow that is Brexit I am just happy I can still get my meds, life is certainly far better on them than off! I also don't ruminate too much on the cant's and generally just enjoy being able to see out the window and spending time with the kitts and mum and the internet is my view of outside the house. It's not what I wanted in life but it could be far, far worse so I just enjoy myself despite it. There is lots of interesting things I can see and read and watch and listen to. I fought very hard to be alive so I will take what I can get while trying to figure out what else can be done as I go.
This is getting quite wordy, so I shall go away and have a wee check on twitter before heading to bed. Thanks for reading if you got this far, I appreciate your time cat.
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Feeling rather sad to have finished the Saltlines shows (for now! There will be more in the spring!) So cheering myself with a reminder of Phil's new look, inspired by the seaside 😁 It's been a bit of a stressful time. Our van broke down mid tour, meaning we did most of this Saltlines run in a hire car. With some meticulous logistics planning we worked out we could leave the van at a garage in Hastings and collect it on a particular day when the gigs worked geographically... But then, mega disaster, the garage didn't fix our van in time! So last night we had to drive from the Milton Keynes show down to Hastings, collect our finally mended van, have a very early morning after a very late night, return the hire car, and, at last, set off for Denmark... The stress might have been less if it weren't for Brexit. Because this morning we had to drive via a friend's house (thank goodness for our lovely friend who waited in to sign for the carnet we had to have delivered!) We are now waiting in a very long queue at an inland border facility to have said carnet processed. Sitting surrounded by enormous trucks who really are in the business of importing and exporting, it feels rather ridiculous. I've a strong suspicion we don't need to be here, but better to be safe and tick the boxes. Sigh. Anyway, at least we managed to change our ferry time with only a small admin fee, so we're not feeling too stressed about time. Bring on this Denmark tour! The dates are: 3/11/22 3F Langsøhus, Silkeborg 4/11/22 Maskinhallen, Frederikshavn 5/11/22 Roots Aarhus 8/11/22 Folk for folk, Svendborg 12/22/22 Musik På Industrien, Aarup https://m.yellowhousebooking.dk/ #denmark #tour #logistics #logisticsolutions #stressmanagement #gettingthere #brexshit #adventures #merman #whatasaga #wishusluck https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckaqtgbs7Rl/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
#denmark#tour#logistics#logisticsolutions#stressmanagement#gettingthere#brexshit#adventures#merman#whatasaga#wishusluck
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