Matthew's Journal

Reading. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh, The Book, with A, a chapter at a time.

Also a bit more of The Age of Seeds, but only a very little bit.

Writing. Fun migraine facts: I spent the weekend discovering that writing by hand at speed Just Does Not Work Well. "Stopping" for "stopper", "fascinate" for "fastener", and so on and so forth...

Listening. Songs and stories! Including, apparently, these people + friends.

Playing. Admin: the LRP.

Eating. I may have slightly subsisted primarily on lemon and sugar crêpes. The raspberry and lemon curd toasties remain a delight. Some blackberries from the hedges.

Exploring. Finally (consciously) observed the giant purple cockerel. The Navarr woods at night.

Growing. Actually managed to water the plants before setting off, go me.

Observing. A BAT IN THE MARQUEE. ALSO A GIANT DRAGONFLY. Also the swallows (I think). Stars.

We've gone on holiday on purpose!

(Us, my brothers, our families, my parents, and their dogs. Seven adults and five kids altogether. Staying in a rented house half an hour out of Southampton for a week.)
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

This week P'tite Soeur organized a family trip to London. All four siblings and Dad, which is quite a feat of logistics even if we didn't manage to also include partners.

( London )

Another thing I was able to do due to not being in Israel was to visit the community I'll be spending Yom Kippur with, the amazing Kehillat Kernow, a peripatetic community covering most of the Cornwall peninsula. (Yes, that's me in the news article at the top of their website, they are very prompt at reporting!) The long train journey was not as wonderful as I had hoped, because the trains were very very overcrowded in peak season, but at least I had a seat and got to enjoy the lovely views. And read a bunch of novels, which is definitely making my brain happier.

They invited me to dinner Friday evening, and had a very Liv conversation about dealing with racism in education and medicine, with the other guests having direct professional expertise, not just setting the world to rights. And put me up in a super nice hotel in a neo-gothic pile that used to be a convent, and were gracious enough to invite me to stay Saturday night as well so I even got a little bit of time in Truro, which is where they held this particular service. I walked along the river a bit, I found a teeny-tiny Pride festival in the town centre, but it was packing up by the time I had finished dinner at 7 pm, so I wasn't able to get dessert from one of the sparkly rainbow doughnut stands.

In between I lead a Shabbat service, with very enthusiastic participation from the community, and they even appreciated my somewhat political sermon about whether we can still be Zionists in this moment. Because it was the new moon of Av, I got to read from their super-exciting Historic scroll. Well, actually I chanted the verses about the creation of the sun and moon; it's still a big deal for me to do that in public. I'm pretty pleased with how all that went.

And now I'm back and I have another month of relatively uncrowded schedule. It's very nice.

The invader has been captured!
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

1. Tom Lehrer Dead: Influential Musical Satirist of '50s and '60s Was 97

(tags:music history comedy obituary )

2. The farce of the Online Safety Act. YouGov tweets are now being censored

(tags:censorship identity children UK )

1. In less than two decades, Earth has tilted 31.5 inches as a result of pumping groundwater

(tags:water earth )

2. Svalbard winter warming is reaching melting point

(tags:globalwarming doom winter Norway )

3. Europe as a template for modern fantasy

(tags:Europe fantasy history )

Event: Casefic Exchange is a fanwork exchange focusing on investigations. These can be solving murders, retrieving stolen items, finding missing people, missions, and mysteries. As long as it has an investigation as its core theme, it fits with the exchange. We are an AO3 exchange; you must have an account and be 18+ to participate.

Minimum requirements: We allow three mediums: a minimum of 3,000 words for fanfiction, a minimum of 10 panels for a comic, or a recording of a completed fic of 3,000 words minimum with "casefic" as one of its tags. Works must include a fandom, character/ship and be of a medium that the recipient has requested.

Event link: caseficexchange.
Pinch hit link: Current pinch hits.
Due date: Friday 8 August at 11:59pm EDT.

Available post-deadline pinch hits:

PH 2 (fic) - Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV), Buffyverse (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Veronica Mars (TV)

PH 8 (fic) - Severance (TV), The West Wing

PH 9 (fic) - 巷説百物語 | Kousetsu Hyaku Monogatari | Requiem from the Darkness (Anime), Nightmare - Cornell Woolrich (Novella), Father Brown (2013), Penny Dreadful (TV), XCOM (2012 Reboot Series)

PH 13 (comic, fic) - 終ノ空 remake | Tsui no Sora Remake, A Girl Corrupted by the Internet is the Summoned Hero?!, Tsukihime (Visual Novel & Anime) [ includes canon consumption tips]

PH 25 (fic) - Elementary (TV), Hannibal (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, Supernatural (TV 2005)

Thank you for considering!

I last updated about 4 weeks ago, in Portsmouth. That was a good mini break, and I'm really glad R and I decided to do it: fun activities and good company. The heatwave hitting most of the country that weekend was less bad in Portsmouth, but despite reapplying sunscreen we both got burned on the walk back from the pier at Southsea, and didn't realise until the long (made longer by speed restrictions) train journey home was nearly over. The trains had aircon, on comfortable rather than arctic setting, so the journey was fine but stepping out into the humid heat at Cambridge came as a shock.

I took a taxi home, staying just long enough to dump my suitcase and pick up my hockey kit, and cycled (in the heat, ugh) to the rink for a scrimmage marking the last Monday night Warbirds practice, before the rink timetable change in July. Got home again a bit after midnight, and then back to work and the rest of "life as usual" from Tuesday morning.

Life as usual continues to be: work, family, ice hockey. A little cricket (playing), a little football (watching), and a theatre trip that reminded me I should go to the theatre more often.

( Family )

( Ice hockey )

( Cricket )

( Football )

( Theatre )

On the topic of both theatre and schedule, I have a livestream ticket to Phoebe Kemp's all trans/nb production of Twelfth Night (introduced by Ian McKellan); the livestream was last night but I have two weeks to watch the recording. My calendar says my best bets for time to watch it is this afternoon, or next Saturday afternoon. I'm going to try for this afternoon.

1. Former MP Mhairi Black announces she has left the SNP

(tags:lgbt transgender SNP politics Scotland Palestine )

2. Fringe Venue Pulls Jewish Comedians' Runs

(tags:Jews viaFJM Edinburgh comedy OhForFucksSake )

3. Why ancient people bred sheep with huge butts

(tags:sheep fat history middle_east )

Picked this up because I kept seeing it being described as literary SF – with that classic complaint, "no plot, hated the protagonist," that often signals a novel that may interest me. It's the tale of a depressed, isolated telepath in New York City in the early 70s who's gradually losing his powers as he enters his forties.

A reviewer on Reddit dismissed the novel as a clumsy metaphor for impotence. Having read it, and read a little about Silverberg's career – he had been churning out multiple novels per year before temporarily deciding to retire from writing in 1975 – I'm now 95% convinced that it's in fact a slightly less clumsy metaphor for the retreat of literary inspiration. Which makes it somewhat more interesting. Isn't fiction really, in some ways, based on the ability to see into other people's minds?

Not a great novel, but it has its moments. Very much of its period and setting, in both the good ways and the bad ways.

1. Google's new AI deciphers missing Latin words in ancient Roman inscriptions

(tags:ai history rome )

2. Why English doesn't use accents on its letters

(tags:language english uk france history writing printing )

3. What Parents of Boys Should Know

(tags:children gender emotion )

4. How Subaru cars were marketed to lesbians

(tags:LGBT lesbians marketing cars history video viaSwampers )

1. 45% of microplastics come from tyres

(tags:plastic environment )

2. UK wealth tax: high risk and anti-growth

(tags:economics taxes uk )

3. Cuba becomes 22nd country to move to self-id for gender change

(tags:GoodNews LGBT transgender Cuba )

4. Starmer's response to far-right protests exposes Britain's moral decline

(tags:UK racism politics OhForFucksSake )

5. Shocking Video Captures Calm Police Officers Handling Situation Nonviolently

(tags:usa satire video violence police )

6. How does Britain's pension predicament compare with other countries

(tags:pensions comparison )

Nice day to walk in to work.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

Talked to Sophia about Wicked. Apparently she kinda enjoyed it, but isn't a fan of revisionism and prefers The Wizard of Oz.

"The good people should stay good and the bad people should stay bad."

1. Labour has brought back Section 28, here's how it will harm children

(tags:children education Labour OhForFucksSake bigotry transgender UK )

2. The Louder the Monkey, the Smaller Its Balls, Study Finds

(tags:monkeys genitals science )

3. Labour ministers lying about Scottish water quality to make it look like privatisation isn't the problem

(tags:Scotland UK England Labour lies water privatisation )

4. French Press Association journalists in Gaza are starving to death

(tags:Israel gaza Palestine OhForFucksSake journalism food )

5. metabolite produced by gut bacteria is a driver of atherosclerosis, the disease behind most heart attacks and strokes.

(tags:heart disease microbiome )

6. Why Facts Don't Change Minds in the Culture Wars—Structure Does

(tags:belief discussion communication )

7. The US is erasing women from the top ranks of the military

(tags:usa military misogyny OhForFucksSake )

8. Why you can't color calibrate (deep) space photos

(tags:space colour photography )

9. Countries across the world see food price shocks from climate extremes

(tags:food prices doom globalwarming )

10. If somebody is doing a good thing, and you try to force them to do a different, better thing, they usually end up doing neither

(tags:communication management organisation )

11. Whites-only communities are spreading in the USA

(tags:USA racism )

1. HS2 was doomed to be a mess before it began, say insiders

(tags:hs2 uk regulation trains planning epicfail )

2. Is it cake? M&S vs HMRC tax edition

(tags:uk tax food cake viaSwampers )

3. In a Major Reversal, the World Bank Is Backing Mega Dams

(tags:hydroelectric investment renewables )

4. UK's Biobank, the biggest human imaging study scans its 100,000th volunteer

(tags:uk mri health research )

5. ChatGPT advises women to ask for lower salaries

(tags:ai inequality women pay OhForFucksSake )

The play park we're waiting for a dentist appointment in has WiFi.

(It's got a building in it owned by the council leisure service to sell ice creams and manage the tennis courts next door.)

1. Lighthouse of Alexandria rises again as 22 massive blocks resurface from the seafloor after 2,000 years

(tags:history light sea architecture egypt archeology )