Stories like this always get me terribly excited, despite the fact that the odds of seeing any of these recovered classics in anything approaching the near future is close to zero. Copyright's a bugger. (On which topic: has anyone here any experience with hunting up obscure things at the BFI? When they say things like 'anything with a 'viewing' status is potentially available for research purposes', do they actually expect you to produce any proof that you are engaged in such legitimate research, or can you just turn up looking shifty and mutter 'ummm, yes, I'm researching...depressed social conditions in Thatcherite Wales. Which is why I wish to watch Morgan's Boy, and not just because it stars Gareth Thomas and there's a crossover with it in one of my favourite Blakes 7 zines.')

Still: a BBC production of Jean Anouilh's version of Sophocles' Antigone starring Dorothy Tutin and David McCallum, that made the front cover of the Radio Times in 1959 but has not been seen since... Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens star opposite each other as Beatrice and Benedick in a 1967 production of Much Ado About Nothing recorded for the BBC... - these things made me flap and squeak fangirlishly at 8.30 this morning, which is an impressive achievement.

(In other news, I am dipping my toes in the pool of Dreamwidth, and finding the water pleasant, even if the pool is at present a trifle on the quiet side. [If people start divebombing and running screaming along the sides while the lifeguards look on stony-faced, I shall regret that statement, however.] I am making myself comfortable by *effacing all visible differences between my DW and LJ pages*, which does admittedly get a little confusing on occasion. I have vague plans for a new layout here, but at the moment don't want to get rid of Max and his frilly, frilly cuffs. This is also my first experiment with cross-posting, so I fully expect Disaster.)

Hullo again all ^_^ Gosh, two posts in a month, never were such days. Anyway, I'm considering moving mostly over to Dreamwidth - or at any rate setting myself up a journal over there from which I can poke around a bit and get used to the place, in case of future migration - and I'll be importing the contents of this journal over there. I'm also planning to import the comments, as I'd very much like to keep those if I decide to get rid of this place. However, I realise that some people may not be happy about their comments being posted somewhere else (although I assure everyone that my profile on Dreamwidth will be just as low as it is here...). There's no selective filter for importing comments to Dreamwidth, sadly, so I can't filter out the comments of selected users automatically; but if you don't want your comments to be reposted on my new blog, please leave a note here, and I'll go through and delete them manually from the new account after the migration. I have been assured by a DW support-person that deleted comments aren't retained on their servers.

Importing a journal to Dreamwidth with comments also automatically creates an OpenID for any LJ-user who has posted one of those comments, associated with that LJ username (unless of course they've got an OpenID already, in which case they won't need to create one). The user can then use that OpenID to delete their comments on my new journal anyway. I don't think I've heard of any privacy-related ramifications of OpenIDs, so I hope that won't be a problem for anyone; there's an FAQ about them here. If anyone has any queries about that - well, I probably won't be able to answer them, being generally a bear of little brain, but I'm willing to give it a try or post a support request. The other option, I suppose, would be to delete the comments of certain users from here before I import the journal to DW; but I'd rather not do that if possible, I love my comments ^_^

If I don't hear anything within a couple of days I'll assume people don't object to having their comments migrated too, and I'll import the journal. If you only find this entry after that's happened, then either get in touch and I'll delete your comments, or use your OpenID to do it yourself.

/public service announcement.

Eh, I don't normally bother getting worked up about livejournal's various attacks of uselessness, but this one does seem more than usually stupid, so - a brief post. (Sorry for f-list spam, especially for those of you who have already heard MORE THAN ENOUGH about this nonsense.) As you may have noticed, the most recent coding release from LJ includes allowing users to crosspost their journal entries and comments to Facebook or Twitter. As the 7200 comments posted on that entry within c.36 hours suggest, this has not been welcomed with unalloyed joy; most notably because one can, deliberately or otherwise (and considering the way the 'post to facebook button' has been positioned, and the fact that one can set one's default setting to 'post all my comments to FB', 'otherwise' is by no means impossible), cross-post one's comments to someone else's friends-locked entry to one's Facebook; this posts on Facebook the content of the comment (including direct quotation from the locked entry if included, quite apart from the content implied by the comment itself), the URL, title, and username of the original post (though of course if it's a locked entry they can't actually see the content itself.) Ways this is potentially a VERY BAD THING include 'God, X, I can't believe you're pregnant!', 'X, I'm so so sorry about your test results', and 'Good luck with the job interview, X - I agree, your boss is a bastard, you're better off out of it.'

This is of course in addition to the fact that many people might not want even their non f-locked entries cross-posted to other people's Facebook accounts, as many of us like to keep our gay porn separate from our work colleagues and family. Of course, one can always link to entries and cut&paste LJ things to Facebook accounts if one wants to, so the privacy accorded is always little notional; but this cross-posting lark does seem rather like an invitation to privacy violation, intentional or, as noted above, otherwise.

(This is, of course, a very basic summary of some of the problems as I see them - many, many other problems have been suggested amongst the now 7211 complaining comments on the original post.)

So, if anyone else feels like LJ should really allow its users the option to opt out of this nonsense, it might - *might* - help if you commented on the post, and/or voted in the poll here, which has been mentioned by the one LJ staff member who's put their head above the parapet on this in the last 36 hours.

Oh, and I trust you lot, of course, but I'd be very grateful if you make doubly sure not to crosspost any comments you may make here to Facebook/Twitter, especially those of you who know me in what approximates to my Real Life ^_^

Thanks for listening, now back to your normal radio silence. More blog posts may be expected a) if/when LJ sort this out, or b) if/when I finish my thesis, whichever comes later. (LAST SYLLABLE OF RECORDED TIME, MY DEARS.)

So, J, what's been making you absurdly over-excited this evening?

Well, J, I'm glad you asked. This evening I have been getting absurdly over-excited about La Révolution Française, a French rock opera by the people who brought you Les Miserables. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS BEFORE. I mean, dear God, it has *singing Robespierre* in FLARES. Could this be any more perfect? As so often, it's entirely bluwacky's fault, both for knowing this existed at all and finding a copy. All complaints are to be directed at him. ahaha.

Here. Have a sample track. It's the convening of the Estates General. Wherein the Nobles sound a bit like 'The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society' and the Third Estate BRINGS THE ROCK. This is quite possibly the most epic thing I have ever heard. (Lyrics here.)

I AM ENTIRELY PREPARED TO SHARE DANTON ROCKING OUT TO 'LA PATRIE EST EN DANGER' IF GIVEN THE SLIGHTEST ENCOURAGEMENT.

Sorry, Tim, Graeme and Bill - I still love you, but I currently love Max's frilly cuffs more.

This blog layout made possible by the fact that she is, as always, amazingly awesome, and got me a gorgeous high-quality version of my favourite Robespierre portrait for Christmas. I have repaid her by creating a layout which will end up agreeing to the execution of hers. Um, sorry?

I've been terminally rubbish at Yuletide this year. I've barely read anything. Trouble is, I tend to read fanfic when I get seized by the fannish need for a particular character or pairing, and then I go out and devour everything I can about her/him/etc/them. But I don't tend to read through archives on spec, so when the Yuletide archive goes live in all its sparkling THOUSANDS OF FANFICS glory, I tend to go @_@ and go and read a Scarlet Pimpernel novel instead. I'll probably read more during the year, as the whimsy takes me.

So I can't do a proper recs post (again). Because I am useless. But I *do* want to point out the gorgeous Regeneration fic I received, as I feel awful about requesting rare fandoms where the writer's not likely to get a huge amount of comment love, and then doubly awful when I don't rec them myself and thereby generate more love for them. So - I got Such Delight As Prisoned Birds Must Find in Freedom, a beautiful Rivers + Sassoon (or Rivers/Sassoon if you read everything with your slash-binoculars set to maximum, WHICH I DO.) fic, threaded through with Sassoon's poetry, taking their relationship through past the end of the war with all its complexities and ambiguities and love. Also, Rivers. <3 Rivers.

For Them What Are Interested, my fic's Six Revolutionary Pamphlets, a series of Camille Desmoulins-centric vignettes working from Hilary Mantel's astonishingly awesome book A Place of Greater Safety (READ IT, IT IS AMAZING. Seriously. I haven't been so bowled over by a book in years.) Sadly I suspect it's largely incomprehensible unless you *have* read the book (or know the French Revolution moderately well - I did try not to put anything *too* horrendously unhistorical in there. Yes, Robespierre did have a waistcoat embroidered with roses, and did serve the soup onto the tablecloth.) But hey, feel free to give it a (probably rather baffled) try.

( A bit of rambling on writing for Yuletide this year )

( Unfortunately, Haussman seems to have torn down the Revolution and built an apartment block on it. )

The fact that my 2008 Reading Round Up post is still on the main page of my livejournal is a source of both amusement and some shame to me.

( Listarama )
( Best author(s) you discovered this year )
( Best new book you read this year: top 3 )
( Book you wish you’d skipped )
( Reading goals for next year )

It's that time of year again! *beams*

Dear Lovely Yuletide Writer,

Firstly: Thank you so, so much for agreeing to write for one of these fandoms - the chance to get a rarelitfic that's been written *just for me* is one of my most cherished Christmas treats, and both I and anyone who comes looking for one of these teeny tiny fandoms in future will love you for it ^_^

So, on to the detail! I'm afraid there are some epic amounts of it below the cuts - if that's likely to intimidate or frustrate you, please please please ignore it. The most important thing is, I want you to have fun writing this fic, and if you do I know I'll love it. But if it's detail you want, I'm happy to provide!

( General likes and dislikes )

( Antal Szerb - The Pendragon Legend )

( John Buchan - Richard Hannay series )

( W.E. Johns - Biggles series )

( Pat Barker - Regeneration trilogy )

There was a post recently on yuletide which was intended to serve as a clearing-house for fandom primers in the upcoming fic exchange - in other words, a place that people can look to if they want to know where to begin in researching a fandom. I started writing a post about Antal Szerb's Pendragon Legend, as I'm pretty certain I'm going to request it this year, and I vaguely hoped that I might be able to drum up a little support (read: encourage SOMEONE ELSE ON THE ENTIRE INTERNET SOMEWHERE to read it). I got to the end of the post, and then realised that, as there were no other resources about Pendragon Legend anywhere on the internet, it wasn't entirely useful to make a post that was meant to collect fandom resources.

Damnit.

So I decided to post something here, by way of an attempt to pimp out my fandom. Below is the original attempt I made for Yuletide; under the cut is a slightly more detailed bit of rambling, in a much more fangirlish vein and focussing on my two pet characters. But really, nothing I can say can quite explain why I think this book is as awesome as I do. You really need the erudition, wit and elegance of the original in order to show why a book that seems to fall somewhere on a direct line between The Name Of The Rose and What Ho Jeeves is great. I am, frankly, not up to Szerb's standards. Go, read it. Readily available in all good bookshops.

Fandom: Almost impossible to explain. Every attempt to describe it ends up something like 'H.P. Lovecraft meets Umberto Eco meets P.G. Wodehouse meets Dorothy L. Sayers', which is true, but unhelpful.
Ship: I have a sneaking fondness for Janos Batky/Osborne Pendragon, despite the fact that that's probably got the least canon support of any relationship in the book.
Comments: On one level, it's the story of how rather naive, passive, self-centred Hungarian János Bátky (a mercilessly amused piece of self-scrutiny on the part of the author) is introduced to the mysterious Earl of Gwynedd and goes to stay at his castle in deepest darkest Merionethshire, where he gets mixed up in a Blood-Curdling Mystery with a full cast of assassins, ghostly horsemen, and Rosicrucians. On another, it's a brilliant author's loving parody of just about every minor genre of 1930s literature, from spy thrillers to society comedies. And on yet another, it's a rather dark and slightly bleak look at the impossibility of true understanding, both of self and of the universe, but conveyed with a beautiful playfulness and lightness of touch. Essentially, it's both inexplicable and indescribable, and I can't recommend both it and Antal Szerb's more famous work, Journey By Moonlight, too highly.
Links: There seems to be no fandom for this in the WORLD (or at any rate not in English, and my Hungarian is *so* not up to the challenge.) This saddens me greatly. The English edition of the book by Pushkin Press is in print and easily obtainable, so if you happen to be on the lookout for a short and unique reading experience, give it a go :D
1. Wikipedia - not that there's anything useful there.
2. Article on Antal Szerb in the Hungarian Quarterly - much more interesting, and drawing out some of the interests and themes from Szerb's tragically short career.

(WARNING: It's possible that there may be some rather triggery moments below the cut, to do with two of the characters in a sexual situation of arguably dubious consent on the man's part. It's nothing explicit, but...just thought I'd better mention.)

( And now for the rambling and fangirlism... )

(Cross-posted from biggles_slash, apologies to those who follow both.)

It's been a while since I've done one of these Biggles review posts, so why not come back with a NEEDLESSLY EPIC one? (Answer: because people don't want to read needlessly long entries, fool. TL:DR version: OMG VON STALHEIN IS A WOOBY.) Warning: unnecessarily convoluted attempts at thinky thoughts, plus gratuitous slash-spotting. bwahahaha.

( Biggles Takes Charge (1956) )

( Dramatic Date )

( Plot, what plot? )

( Notes )

( Lines to cherish )

( Side note/essay: forgiving and forgetting )

( Conclusions )

Ahahaha, new LJ banner, now with 100% MORE TIM BROOKE-TAYLOR, joy :D

I can't believe LJ made me post this fic in two bits because it was too long. pfffft. Lightweights.

Title: Courting Disaster (2/2) (Part 1)
Fandom: The Goodies
Pairing: Graeme/Tim.
Rating: Adult-ish. Slash is stated but not explicit.
Word count: c. 11 0000 in total

( 'We're going to get letters about this...' )

I still can't quite believe I wrote Goodies-slash, and that's after 11 000 words of it @_@

To quote emo!Tenth: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

If you're not a fan of the Goodies - this probably won't make much sense. If you are a fan of the Goodies and my icon doesn't make you go 'eeeeeeee' - you probably shouldn't read this. If you're not a fan of comedy-fluff-slash - you probably shouldn't look below the LJ cut. If you don't have a secret love of Tim being a really crap feminist - you probably shouldn't go any further. I refuse to take any responsibility for anyone's horror and/or disgust.

Oh, cripes. I can't quite believe I wrote Goodies-slash.

Title: Courting Disaster (1/2)
Fandom: The Goodies
Pairing: Graeme/Tim. I KNOW, OKAY.
Rating: Hmmm, adult-ish. Slash is stated but not explicit.
Word count: c. 11 0000 in total
Continuity: Continuation (of a sort...) of episode 2x10, Women's Lib. I hope all the necessary continuity points will be sufficiently explained - let me know if they're not, I'll correct it next draft.

( 'Some of my best friends make daisy-chains...' )

Part 2

A/N: This is my first attempt at writing the boys. I don't think they're quite right yet, and I don't think I've yet got the hang of writing for such a visual series in a textual medium. Still, practice makes etc etc.

In other news: I'm so, so sorry.

Well, you asked for it. No - wait, hang on. No you didn't. I don't care. Tim In Frocks, seasons 6-9.

( 'I love it when you're cross, my little doe-eyed vixen!' )

In conclusion: yay.

So, I have recently been watching more of The Goodies that could be said to be entirely conducive to my health and sanity. I've been an ISIRTA and ISIHAC fan for years, and yet I've never quite got round to watching The Goodies. I have *no idea* why not; possibly, with the benefit of hindsight, it was self-defence, as since I began watching it I have developed an ENORMOUS INAPPROPRIATE CRUSH on Tim Brooke-Taylor. HE IS SO FLUFFY AND HIGH-PITCHED AND VULNERABLE, OMG.

So, in the spirit of taversham's recent glorious post on the utterly adorable perfection of Graeme/Tim (no, really, I 'ship them so hard now @_@), I present a ginormous picspam of the epic joy of TIM CROSSDRESSING, YAY.

So far I've only screencapped seasons 1-5. WHY YES, THERE ARE ANOTHER FOUR SEASONS OF TIM IN FROCKS YET TO COME. (Oh, and also: most of these are in pretty horrible quality, by the way. Sorry. Blame the BBC for not releasing the majority on DVD.)

( 'I'm *proud* to be a woman.' )

So, what have *you* all been doing today? @_@

So, I set up a prompts table on biggles_slash a while back, largely in the hope that it'd inspire me to write some more fic. It hasn't quite worked yet, but I still want to bung the table up here so I can link the fics to it as and when I write them. Why yes, I do spend more time organising my fandoms than actually participating in them.

01. Beginnings	02. Middles	03. Endings	04. Time	05. Distance
06. Comrades	07. Enemies	08. Family	09. Loyalty	10. Betrayal
11. It's a lovely war	12. A long way to go	13. Never mind	14. I want to go home	15. Good-bye-ee
16. Flowers	17. Fields	18. Sun	19. Clear skies	20. Storm
21. Pack up your troubles	22. White cliffs	23. Home fires	24. When the lights go on again	25. We'll meet again
26. Journey	27. Chase	28. Capture	29. Escape	30. Author's choice

So, in the spirit of not-having-any-original-ideas-for-blog-content, I'm ganking the post I made about this time last year about my recent reading. This year I've been keeping a running note about which books I've read; I thought it'd be interesting both for the sake of working out how much I actually get through in a year (and comparing this total with the number of still-unread books on my shelves, and comparing it *again* with the number of new books I've bought... *coffs*), and out of curiosity about how many of these books I can actually remember six months or so later.

( Listy list list )

So, that's about 90-odd books read this year (I think there may have been one or two I forgot to add to my scrappy little Notepad file as I went along); by way of comparison, I also went through and totted up the number of unread books there are on my shelves. I make it about 150. So...if I stop buying new books altogether, and carry on reading at my current rate, I should be in a position to justifying new books by about next September. >_<

Best author(s) you discovered this year:
It's a toss-up between Patrick Leigh Fermor and Miklos Banffy; I first ran across Leigh Fermor in the introduction to the Transylvanian Trilogy, and the two writers do rather complement one another. I adore Leigh Fermor's prose, for all that it might be considered somewhat overwrought for modern tastes; I love the world he shows us, his fascination with people and places, and the almost reckless boldness with which he launched himself off across Europe with a few pounds a month, a little German, and a volume of Horace. With Banffy, it's the whole sweep of the world which he depicts that's the seductive part - the Transylvania Trilogy is a great sprawling sweep of novel, with a cast of hundreds and a sense of place and time that's marvellous; I badly want to go to Transylvania now, the author loves it so much and describes it so magically. I also find it fascinating that he is, essentially, one of the protagonists - his hero, a Transylvanian aristocrat and politician who attempts to balance his love for an unattainable mistress with his responsibilities to his family, his peasant farmers, and his country both internally and on the world stage, has many of Banffy's own ideas and ideals, and is even given one of Banffy's own political speeches to deliver. Count Miklos Banffy was a politician of some note, and intimately familiar with the world he describes; but like Leigh Fermor, he writes from the outside, looking back on the world which has now passed away. Both are highly recommended.

Best new book you read this year: top 3

The Writing On The Wall (The Transylvanian Trilogy), Miklos Banffy - see above.
A Time Of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor - see above.
Borges and the Eternal Orang-Utans, Luis Fernando Verissimo - this is a teeny tiny little book which I picked up at the Fiction In Translation table in Waterstones; I assumed that anything with that title had to be good, and I was quite right. What I particularly loved was that it was a murder mystery which I didn't guess - indeed, I didn't even *try* to guess it. I was so lulled off my guard by the Borgesian tone that I didn't even begin to consider that I could work out who the murderer was, even though it turned out in the end to a neat little semi-traditional murder mystery. Marvellous stuff.

Book you wish you’d skipped

The Poe Shadow, Matthew Pearl. Blah. Maybe I'd have disliked this less if I didn't suspect Poe of being quite such a waste of space as I do.

Reading goals for next year

Well, since I didn't actually get round to it last year, it's going on the list again - moar Perry Mason. pearbean and I have some serious gleeing to do, and I'm not helping by slacking on my pulp responsibilities. Those Perry/Paul/Della fics won't write themselves. I also want to improve my knowledge of Agatha Christie - I read lots of them years ago, but I really don't remember many, and there are always more to find. I haven't read *any* Tommy and Tuppence, for heaven's sakes! Call myself a murder mystery fan, sheesh. Also this year: War and Peace, Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot. Oh yeah, it's time to work through some door-stops.

Further goal: don't buy more books. Further further goal: attempt to get down my unread books down into double digits.

....so, I've met the new Doctor.

He was in sixth form drama classes with my friend Emily. I saw him in their A-level drama productions.

Excuse me while I hyperventilate in a corner.

Okay, so, I don't normally post Yuletide notes until after I've put together my recs selection (and sometimes not even then, *coffs with embarrassment at last year's uselessness*), but I feel a desperate need for this one.

OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS, I HAVE SO MUCH 'ROOM WITH A VIEW' FIC. ALL YOUR CECIL/FREDDY ARE BELONG TO ME. ALSO RAFFLES AND OMG. JOY.

^________________^

ETA: And now I've actually had time to read them, and they're all *wonderful* and gorgeous and I HAVE ALL THE FREDDY/CECIL IN THE WORLD, OMG. Seriously, I feel like a dog with two tails.

A View of Pamplona - Cecil and Freddy at the running of the bulls. Lightly slashy (one kiss (1)).
Carpe Diem - Cecil and Freddy, WWI. Lightly slashy (one forehead-kiss (1)).
Stamp'd On These Lifeless Things - Cecil and Freddy at the V&A. Lightly slashy (one statue-buttock-fondling (1)).

Count them. THREE. Three slashy Cecil/Freddy fics. All with different feels, all highly recommended, and all showing all the ways that Cecil is awkward and awful and wonderful and how there's hope for him no matter what Lucy may think; and how Freddy is *Freddy*; and how they can create something together that is perfect.

And, not to forget:
A Heaven In Hell's Despair - Raffles/Bunny, really rather slash-tastic. Or, to put it different: SOMEONE WROTE ME PORN IN E.W. HORNUNG-VOICE, OH MY *GOD*. Raffles somewhat out of control, Bunny very much in control, and all the ways they're so tangled up together there's no chance of either of them escaping. *purrrrrrrrrrrrs*

I cannot begin to process how lucky I have been this year :D

Actual extract from the 'Introduction from the Cataloguer' in a numismatic sales catalogue I'm using at the moment ('Coins of the Peloponnese: the BCD Collection'):

'BCD's concern for scholarly integrity has led him to insist on my providing provenances for every coin that has previously appeared in an illustrated catalogue or price list of any kind, no matter how obscure, since he believes such references will prove important for future scholars doing die studies. I have, nevertheless, managed to exclude some truly useless lists (BCD: But this triobol comes from the only illustrated list of Franz-Otto Knödel of Feinschmankerl bei Haxen in Bavaria! Scholars will find this important! ASW: No they won't! You're the only person on Earth who has conceivably kept a copy of such a miserable photocopied list with upside-down, not-to-scale, out-of-focus, misidentified coins! I'm not putting it in my catalogue! BCD: Grrrrrr.)'

Sometimes, I do love my big dumb subject.

ETA: p.156: 'Another hemidrachm is known with the head facing right; it is, unfortunately, too poorly preseved to be illustrated and is therefore not included in the catalogue. A note from BCD: As you see, ASW draws the line somewhere. But how can he be so sure that the coin is too poorly preserved to be illustrated? Mind you, with the overhead fluorescent lamps in his office being his only light source, I am surprised he can actually see a coin, let alone judge how photogenic it can be.'

This is the best auction catalogue *ever*.

ETA 2: p.306: 'A note from BCD: This is the best of my early Hermione hemidrachms but ASW had to include many other similar coins in order to contradict himself when he calls them very rare. Serious scholarship is like that...you have to keep the reader confused, otherwise one day he may learn enough to challenge you on your own grounds.'

ETA 3: p.345: 'According to the continuator of Athenaeus (Deipn. Pseud. X, passim) the roof tiles on the buildings of the acropolis at Lousoi were very glossy and glinted like gems in the rays of the setting sun; this gave rise to the proverbial saying, 'Lousoi in the sky with diamonds.''