The lyf so short

Right! Last time, I left off in Exeter college. There were still lots of other things to do in Oxford -- all the other Open Door colleges and the Botanical Gardens and the Witchcraft exhibition at the Ashmolean and the Pitts-Rivers Museum of Anthropology and, and, and -- but there was pressing business to attend to. As you may or may not recall, I discovered and read and re-read and re-read Robert Harris' Cicero trilogy last year, and this year, the Royal Shakespeare Company had turned it into a play (two plays). And guess what? The final performances were on... *dun dun dun* September 8.
So I didn't look at anything else Oxford had to offer, but went straight to High Street and took a bus to the capital - with one auspicious and one drooping eye.

( Cut for the pictures )

Dear LiveJournal, the castle one village over has new owners, should I worry?



(Actually, it was just a little convention going on, everything's fine)



(The Morgoth cosplayer tried to have some photos taken but people constantly needed to squeeze past and then other people behind them started to blow soap bubbles their way. It was funny? Well I found it funny.)



(Also, some of the souvenir stalls were in the middle of the museum so I was tempted to ask for one of them fancy goblets from the showcase. I thought that was funny too.)



(Didn't know our local castle has a connection to Hogwarts... convenient!)



Jed Brophy and Royd Tolkien explain who their favourite Silmarillion characters are (Royd: Beren and Lúthien, predictably. Jed: "Finrod Felagund Hewer of Caves" - pretty much the way I imagine you first reacting to yet another Fin-, dawn_felagund!). They might be back next May for the Middle-earth Special Edition of the convention, squeeee!

And how was your weekend?


(We also went to the fair with the kids afterwards so I am actually pretty exhausted, but I still needed to get rid of these pictures.)

so I'm glad I didn't commit myself to liveblogging about it. (I do hope I'll manage to do the finals on Saturday.)

I did not actually go to bed. But because it was a rather unexciting Semifinal, I couldn't tear my eyes off Robert Harris' Imperium until there was no more book left. It was RIVETING, I tell you, and I can't wait to get my hands on the sequels! Amusingly, the ESC made quite a nice backdrop of noise to it, in spite of the rather non-period quality of the music, although whenever there was a wave of applause, I was kind of confused to see a bunch of Ukrainian prettyboys in smart grey suits rather than a senator in toga candida, but nevermind. Immersion is good, right? Actually, it's been a long time since I got so immersed in any work of professionally published fiction, and I'm not even a fan of political or legal drama! -- Mind you, I may have developed a major fictional/historical crush on Marcus Tullius Cicero. Oh dear. I can only hope that he and Maedhros will get along in my limited headspace.

Maedhros *side-eyes hard*: And who would you be.
Cicero *calmly ordering the folds of his toga*: Your lawyer.
Maedhros: ... right.

Well, I guess that's settled then.

- - -

Also yesterday, I got surprise!flowers! Not from Cicero. Not from the husband, either! Not, in fact - before the tongues start wagging - from any man (living or otherwise). They're gorgeous and I feel rather guilty because I'm so horrible at sending out gifts or even just a damn card on time. I haven't had such a lovely bouquet since my wedding, good grief! THANK YOU SO MUCH! You know who you are. <3 I am in equal measures delighted and ashamed.


We're obviously talking about the big bouquet here. The lil' cuckoo flowers were plucked by Felix at my parents' place.

- - -

While I'm on the topic of TV and fandoms anyway, in accordance with the prophecy air dates we've finished watching the second season of The Last Kingdom, which was also riveting. (I did not end up with a fictional/historical crush on Alfred the Awesome, though, although David Dawson is really doing a fantastic job. I am, alas, less excited about Æthelflæd, who is brilliant in the books. Well, she's young, she might be awesome in future episodes.) Sadly, the costume design is, for the most part, still out of this world (that is to say, completely absurd). But the pacing was excellent. If we could have, we would have binge-watched the whole thing because waiting a whole week was hardly bearable, and I say that as someone who already knows the books! (Naturally, the series deviates from the books quite a bit, but the cornerstones remain.) Even Jörg, who was rather sore about the changes from the books in the first season (he's new to this having his fandom turned into film thing ;)) didn't mind it this time around, although we did miss the warfare-with-bees at Beamfleot. (But to be fair, Sword Song wasn't the strongest book in the series, so merging it with The Lords of the North may have been a very good move.) So now the waiting for the third season begins (assuming that the BBC will produce it in the first place! I very much hope they will!). But at least the latest book in the series is now available in softcover, so that'll keep us going for a bit.

Meanwhile, there's American Gods! Haven't seen anything except for the trailer, but that is looking promising, so I'm seriously considering getting Amazon Prime just for this. Is it worth it? Does anyone know? Argh, I so hope this is gonna be good!

and other assorted thoughts on Rogue One!

(Yes, I made it to a cinema for the second time this year! Exciting times!)

Spoiler-free version: I really liked it; it ties in perfectly with A New Hope, not only story-wise but also as far as the aesthetics and the tech level are concerned; it answers some open questions in the way the best fanfics do; fantastic visuals; sometimes, almost too plausible for comfort. Jörg's comment was that it's a war movie rather than a sci-fi movie, and it is that.

I do have to say though, I'm naturally aware that Male Suprematists are ridiculous whiners anyway (if you find it easier to identify with a male MonCal spaceship captain than with a female human, I dunno, maybe the problem is not with the woman?), but one label that certainly doesn't fit this film is "feminist propaganda". Good grief. Yes, it's got a female protagonist. OMG. But it's still a galaxy full of men doing manly things. Let me count the named female characters (for a given value of "named"): Jyn Erso, Lyra Erso, Mon Mothma, Senator Pamlo, Gold Nine, Blue Three, Leia Organa. Wow, I actually needed a second hand for that! THE GALAXY IS FULL OF WIMMENZ! DISNEY TOTALLY RUINED STAR WARS! FEMINIST PROPAGANDA! And I thought men were supposed to be good at maths. ;)

Right! Now that that's out of the system, let me proceed to the spoileriffic!
( Here goes a cut for your convenience, click at own risk. )

That's all I can think of for now! It would have been nice to see A New Hope immediately after - this movie works perfectly well on its own, but it also works perfectly well as a prequel - but it seems we'll have to wait for the DVD before we can do that. Oh well. In conclusion, what a wonderful addition to the Saga. A++, would watch again.

GUESS WHO WENT TO THE CINEMA!

[This is a big deal for me, OK. Last time I went to a movie cinema was for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I've missed out on everything that was hot ever since then.]

A bit absurdly, the best thing about the movie (which I enjoyed!) was just watching the crawly text crawl up, going EPISODE VII. EPISODE VII, GALS. I was too young to see any of the original movies in the theatre (I was born a few days before Return of the Jedi hit the big screen, just to put things into perspective), but I had just the right age for all the prequels (...). The crawly text and the beginning of a new movie has always been a magic moment, and one thing we all knew when we sat there watching the crawly text go EPISODE III was that this was it, there would be no other movies, no repetition of this magic moment, this was the final farewell to the cinematic Galaxy far, far away. It wasn't just because George Lucas had declared that he'd never make any further Star Wars movies; it was because we'd had to realise that George Lucas couldn't really be trusted to deliver the Star Wars feeling, anyway. (Although Episode III, back then, was better than expected. Today, it still makes me cringe.)
And now, suddenly, EPISODE VII, pushing beyond that frontier and into a new trilogy.

Which didn't make me cringe. It isn't perfect, but it's enjoyable, and right now, that's good enough for me.

( And now we're drifting into extremely SPOILERific territory so proceed at own risk )

- - -
Right. Trying to prepare for Christmas. It's kinda hard because the weather it so Spring-like that I want to work in the garden and just postpone Christmas until it's colder or wetter or until all the work is done. NO TIME FOR TINSEL. I HAVE SERIOUS WORK TO DO, DAMMIT.

(Or Guys, guys! to the three guys in the audience.)

YOU KNOW WHAT.

There's a copy of Thorin's Map in the Hobbit Art & Design book and YOU KNOW WHAT.
THERE ARE MOON RUNES ON IT THAT ACTUALLY ARE ONLY VISIBLE WHEN THE LIGHT COMES FROM A CERTAIN ANGLE. (I discovered them by chance because our living room lights are totally weird.) HOW AWESOME IS THAT.

VERY AWESOME, THAT'S HOW.
(In fact, the whole book pretty much rocks, except for the Radagast bits, which are way too Discworldly for my humble taste, but YMMV.)
No, I still haven't seen the movie, why?

Other than that, hello world! My brain is completely fried from Christmas preparations, Christmas celebrations (including a horrible, horrible pageant), family, a most embarrassing plethora of gifts and, above all, FOOOOOOOOOD. When I'm not trying to keep up with stuff, I come up with horrible, horrible jokes like this one



Told you, brain fried.

But (at this point) mostly in a good way.

To you all, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, including (but not limited to) Christmas, and if you aren't celebrating anything yet (or anymore), Happy Time of the Week!

Lyra out. Gotta prepare more FOOOOOOOOOD.
Cheers!