Our Open Thread this weekend is hosted by this proud-looking otter [courtesy of Kevin on flickr].
Please feel free to use this thread to natter about anything your heart desires. Is there anything great happening in your life? Anything you want to get off your chest? Reading a good book (or a bad one)? Anything in the news that you’d like to discuss? What have you created lately? Commiserations, felicitations, temptations, contemplations, speculations?
Categories: Life
Soggy here, innit? 
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
Getting out the ‘yes’ 
100 books by women in 2016 
Hoyden About Town 
Ha, that otter looks like it is graciously granting permission for the peasants to approach.
My breathing apparatus is much improved this weekend. A bit of a sniffle and cough left, but at least I should be able to sing tomorrow.
Damn, no new Doctor Who until August! Peter Capaldi better bloody kick it out of the park, that’s all.
This morning started out sunny and warmish. It quickly became overcast and cold and then the rain started. The rain, wind and cold has continued. All thoughts of getting the washing dry have ceased.
The weather report for my son’s soccer game this morning was 13 degrees, windy, 6 to 15 mm of rain, thunderstorms, and hail. Lucky for us, it was merely cold and windy. The kids managed a draw too!
I have slightly sprained my ankle. Ironically enough, I did it on the way home from a yoga class. I have sprained this same ankle a number of times before, including very severely about five years ago, so I am trying to take it easy and do all the right things, even though it seems fairly minor. Mildly irritated, as I was really starting to get into some exercise lately…
I’m really annoyed Clara will be continuing in the Capaldi era. She’s been nothing but a pretty faced cypher so far and I have no investment in the character.
I feel ambivalent about Clara. I don’t really think she’s been much yet other than eye/plot candy, but I’m interested to see what the dynamic between her and Capaldi will be (hopefully this will result in less flirting).
I’m babysitting a four-year-old and a nearly three-year-old tonight, my partner’s children. They have been bathed/showered, fed (vegetables, even), read stories and put to bed, and were asleep by 8:15. I count this as a success.
Jo: #winning. Tigtog: Hurrah for lungs!
On the subjects of both football and injuries: my lad’s done a hammy at training, so no dancing today and no football tomorrow. It’s all rest and ice, which is rather dull for him, but much more restful than usual.
I feel ambivalent about Clara.
I don’t dislike Clara, but her Dalek and Victorian versions were both more interesting than the one we got. And most of her big moments feel like they would have worked better as Amy and/or Rory moments.
IMO, that was meant to say.
So Rolf Harris has been found guilty on all 12 counts of indecently assaulting minors. I’m not surprised, given what we heard of his testimony from court reporters. He seemed stuck on “they are all making it up” which I presume was once his trump card and which he seems bewildered to discover no longer works like it used to.
Operation Yewtree announced that more prosecutions will be laid as they continue to work through mountains of accusations against other celebrities of the Jimmy Savile era.
Bernard Gallager at The Conversation asks but what has Operation Yewtree really taught us about sexual abuse?, given that abuse by celebrities is only an extreme example of how predators groom their communities to believe them rather than their victims.
Cypher and no investment for Clara here too. I just can’t get a grip on her character. Sometimes it seems like she’s supposed to be feisty and sometimes really smart and sometimes wise. It’s as if the writers asked Stephen Moffat what her character was, and he just shrugged and said ‘Dr Who companion’. I saw no emotional connection between her and the Doctor (the way there was between Amy and the Doctor, for example) that would explain her willingness to give up her own life to save his.
So chapter 7 of Tansy RR’s new web serial is pretty good eh?
I’m not surprised, given what we heard of his testimony from court reporters.
Nor me.
Superflous female protagonist (SMBC comic)
Looks like we have lost The Mary Sue 😦
Also I seem to have mastitis? !? I didn’t know you could get that when not breastfeeding….
Ow, angharad, I’m sorry to hear that.
Re the MarySue, I notice one of their justifications was that 55% of the readership was male. If that’s so, surely it implies that the site was *already* attractive to a male readership. So how’s that a reason to take away its distinctive character.
Rolf Harris has been sentenced to five years and nine months.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28163593