blamebrampton

Brammer's friend: But I think it's important that if you're a girl who just wants to get some, you put it out there. Because god knows there are some boys we know who just desperately need to get laid, and we can just get them together, and then everybody's happy.

Brammers: So she can just willingly fall on that pork sword?

(I slapped myself to save my friend the effort.)

Imagine my surprise!

Nicola Roxon is the Australian Minister for Health and Ageing. She is currently being interviewed on the ABC about swine flu and Australia, and has been a voice of calm and reason.

'We have 89 suspected cases of swine flu,' said the host of the news program.

'No,' she corrected, 'we have 89 people who have been travelling in affected areas who are experiencing flu-like symptoms that warrant further investigation. Of that there are only two who we have suggested be quarantined and they are being tested.'

It's the sort of nicety you'd expect from the daughter of scientists.

The Australian government has just declared it a quarantineable disease, a measure that is usually not needed as Australians, like New Zealanders, are generally very good about public health. It's the third major epidemic threatening the region in the last decade, after SARS and Bird Flu. First likely flu pandemic since I was a toddler, though.

I await the lunacy that will be flooding the internet over the next few weeks. And can I just warn that I will thoroughly ridicule any member of my flist who rants about why weren't vaccines ready and why aren't people being given antibiotics. (I will happily explain why both of these comments are stupid for people who just don't know, wanting knowledge is to be encouraged and there is no reason why you should be interested in the epidemiology of influenza!).

In a moment of irony-like coincidence, I have a mild case of normal influenza picked up in the week before I was booked in for my flu shot. Bloody typical. At least it is one of the feebler strains, I think those are all B this year. Stupid fast-mutating viruses!

It has been over two months since the Victorian fires. Long enough for an inquest to begin, long enough for most of the funerals. Not long enough for journalists to get their heads around what happened, though I don't know if they ever can. You can see the film I am talking about here, it was shot for Four Corners, one of the leading Australian news programs, on the ABC, and produced by Liz Jackson, a good journalist.

The footage shown on Four Corners is astonishing. Darryl Hull, a local resident and worker and amateur photographer filmed some of the fire in Marysville after the firefighters who were there had been forced to retreat to the town oval. There were 50 of them, they had stood up on the Kings Road above the town until the fire grew so intense that they could no longer stay and keep themselves alive, even when turning their hoses on each other. They moved ahead of the fire back to the only defensible space.

Hull took refuge with them, and filmed. You can hear his commentary. 'That was the school, that was the information centre, that's all that's left of that beautiful church ...' Every few minutes, his voice mournfully breathes 'Oh my god ...'

Liz spends her time in the report interviewing emergency services personnel, trying to understand what went wrong. 34 people died in Marysville, some in their houses, some on the road leading out, some running to the road ahead of the fire. She cannot understand this. 'But there should have been a warning,' she says a few times. Some of the people agree, despite the fact they were listening to local radio that was broadcasting alerts.

'They had no siren,' one of the women said. 'I was expecting a siren.'

'Why didn't you sound the siren?' Liz asks Glen Fiske, the captain of the local Country Fire Association. And I am paraphrasing, but this is the gist of it.

'We did,' he said, shaking his head at her. 'It's the alert for the firefighters to gather at the station. They gathered, they were there. That's what the siren's for.'

She clearly can't understand, can't get her head around the fact that they've never needed to use the siren for anything other than calling the firies in to work in the past.

'But you warned the owner of the B&B to get his guests out,' she says to him later in the show. 'Don't you wish you'd warned other people, that you'd ...' and her voice peters out as she realises what she is saying.

Glen's wife and youngest son died in the fires. He lost his phone fighting a spot fire earlier that day. They couldn't call him. By the time he could leave the station to go to his house, it was gone, and they were, too.

'Obviously,' he says gently. 'I dearly wish that. But we had no idea, no one did.'

Liz stammers. She knows this, but she feels sure there must be an answer, must be something that could have been done. There must have been ...

She talks to the fire chief at Alexandra, the more senior officer. His eyes are red, and look as though they have been for weeks. He tells her how they stuck to their systems, but the day kept growing worse. He couldn't get through to the person he needed to sound emergency alarms, not by phone or radio, the state-wide emergency overloaded communications. The stay or go policy didn't work this time, because houses that had previously always been the safest place to hold out through a fire were infernos in minutes.

'But ...' she says.

He looks at her, tired, defeated. She gives up. She goes back to Glen Fiske, and ask him why he wants to stay and help rebuild Marysville.

'Because ...' and now he cries.

'Because you told me you wanted your other children to grow up here, to know it as home, as you did,' she prompts.

'That sense of belonging,' he says, holding his voice level by sheer will.

And Liz is quiet. 'No one should have to pay this much,' she says in her voice-over to the footage of the funeral for Glen Fiske's wife and son. 'There should have been more systems, more support ...'

She can't say what they should have been, exactly, nor how they should have known in advance. Nor can she bear to address the root problem beyond stating a simple fact. The fire, like so many of those that burned through Victoria that day, was deliberately lit.

One of the downsides of being raised by wolves* is that I know bits and pieces about grooming, but not the whole picture. This is usually fine, I am reasonably genetically lucky and have never been fussed on occasions when I have turned up with Manga hair and everyone else is doing French rolls.

But sometimes I seek information, and have no sources! SO, for those of you in the US and UK, are any of you familiar with Smashbox cosmetics? If you are, could you do me a great favour and share some information?

They have some primers that sound really lovely, but there is no local stockist and they are too costly to buy on spec. I am a convert to primers, since you can often wear them instead of foundation, and you need less foundation for good coverage if you do use it, so they're perfect for 'meeting face' without feeling like a drag queen!

The two that I am looking at are Smashbox Color Correcting Foundation Primer in the green, or Smashbox Photo Finish Primer SPF 15 and Dermaxyl. I have fairish skin in a neutral tone (generally the 01 or 02 shades in most ranges). It's in fairly good condition for my age, but has some fine lines and is prone to dehydration. I have some slight discolouration from ripping my face off on a road, and will go pink at the faintest touch of sun or embarrassment. (Happily, it is very hard to embarrass me!) On the whole, it's sensitive and a little dry.

What I am interested in are the tones and the opacity. I dislike wearing anything masklike on my face and enjoy cosmetics that feel light and move with my skin. Anything yellow-toned is right out, as it looks obvious and gives me the visage du hepatitis. Anything too pink makes me look as though I have been chasing young men around the photocopier after drinking a bottle of vino ordinaire. I had one lovely light green powder from some French brand purchased in Lyon in 1984 that went invisible when I dusted it on my cheeks, leaving them creamy and luminous, Some bugger nicked it from my handbag in a German nightclub and I never saw that brand again. Every brand I have tried to replicate it with has made me look like Mrs Kermit, young Kermit's badly behaved mother.

And let us not forget the fine lines! Despite religious sunblocking, I have spent too much time outside and much of that in Australia, where there is no ozone layer, and Kenya, where there was no sunblock (it was the 70s). Anything that 'luminises', cosmetic monolith-speak for plays with light so the wrinkles look softer, is welcome.

So, to the three of you still reading, will either of the Smashbox primers make me happy that I have spent the same sum on one of them as I would on two new trade paperbacks? Any other suggestions? Is it just time to sew fine black veils to all my hats?


* Actually hippies and lesbians, but there are many similarities including but not limited to being encouraged to howl at the moon, running wild in packs over the moors, rarely bathing, and an awful lot of hair.

I have spent a disturbing amount of the last two days being chased up hill and down dale by a small army of children, which is doubly amusing because the rest of the time I was being Meeting Woman of Much Procedure. I do this most Easters, when one of my clubs has a big get-together and I indulge my twin personae of Political Girl and Fave Aunty to the Masses. But after running around in the sun, I am now on the cusp of expiring. So much so that when J disappeared to gossip with some of his friends rather than taking me home, I longed to fling myself on the ground and produce a gust of tears in the fashion favoured by some of the three year olds I have seen this weekend.

But as we were finally leaving, I was stopped by a young woman. She said 'Brammers? I just want to thank you for taking care of me when I was younger. You were great.'

I was a bit staggered, and replied, 'All I did was tell you jokes, feed you some chocolate when you were hormonal or miserable, and swatted predatory men when they circled around you when you were 16.'

'That's what I am talking about,' she said. 'There aren't enough older women who look out for young girls like that. You let me have fun and let me made some mistakes, but stopped me from making any big ones.'

We talked for a while longer, with me pointing out that she had always been sensible and capable, which was what really stopped her from making big mistakes with her life. She said that nonetheless, having an adult who treated her as someone worth paying attention to had always mattered, even though I only saw her a few times a year. She told me that's what she tries to do now, and while we were talking, a couple of the younger girls came up and organised to meet up with her later. She had taken them under her wing.

And I suddenly wondered if I wasn't a little bit maternal, after all. And all of that exhaustion I had felt after running around with the children and listening to all of their plans and tricksiness? Couldn't feel a whit.

So if you sometimes find yourself talking to smelly teenagers who are mostly sulky and grumpy, or to hyperactive seven-year-old horrors who speak in non sequiturs, and all you want is a cool shower and a stiff drink, you can at least comfort yourself with the knowledge that in all likelihood, they are actually taking some of it in, and you are having something of a good influence.

And now I need a hot bath and a long sleep.

I tried that last night in a bid to recover enough to face today. The Monster cat sat on the edge, splashing the water around my feet. Then she ran laps of the bath rim until she slipped and fell in. Surprisingly, she did not seem to mind, but had a look on her face that rather said: 'Oh wow! This water is wet and warm!' and waited patiently until I could stop laughing enough to lift her out.

Tonight I will lock the bathroom door, and hope to be more successful. Back to comment answering tomorrow -- so many comments owed, I am sorry! Sleep is simply necessary.

Because I think it is admirable that they are attempting to encourage standards, despite all evidence to the contrary, however: 

"Please note that it can take up to 4-8 hours for your story to be publically listed and be available through the search engine."

does not inspire the confidence it could.


And, for something mostly different. calanthe_fics  is one of my favourite writers, though I suspect that she enjoys torturing me. MONTHS after posting the last thing she wrote, she is back in the land of fic production. Her new story is here, and it's called Gush. As to the torture, well, it's as well written as all her stuff, set during the Harry stalking Draco part of HBP (my fave fanon period!) and involves manipulations and mind games.

And the sort of kink that has me squealing and hiding behind my hands. Because I am easily sent into the Doctor Who Watching Position.

What sort of kink, you ask? Well, she rejected my suggestion that she call it Floods of Passion, if that's any help. It's brilliant stuff, showing just exactly how far Draco Malfoy was prepared to go to keep his secrets that year (quite some way indeed!)

Which is good only from the perspective that it renders it unattractive to the tastebuds of the ravening undead.

Why are you blathering on about Zombies, Brammers? you may ask. Ah ha! I say, You are clearly unaware that this month marks the publication of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is a real and actual book.

Having perused the opening chapters (the first three can be downloaded here), I am kicking myself a little, since I have clearly missed an obvious career move. Doing mash-ups of the classics seems so obvious now I think of it. Alas, I did not think of it first. And it is a genuine alas here, since the writer who did think of it is simply not as funny as I would have been.

However, I am not too proud to jump on a comedy-rich bandwagon. Hence, I have decided to devote myself to some new writing: Emma the Vampire Slayer, Mansfield Werewolf Park, Northanger Abbey of the Damned, and, my masterwork, Sense and Insensibility, in which Marianne Dashwood is raised from the dead by her mad scientist sister. 

I may be some time ...

Yes, it's me! My little doggie has the day off and the Oxfam goat is popping by to say hello.

I stated last year that I should never do any fests or so on ever again because I am simply rubbish at them. I was quite right. Nonetheless, I was swept up in a wave of enthusiasm, among with some of the girls and women on one of my writers' comms, and joined HP10K, where we all aimed to write 10,000-word stories, connected to awareness raising on some topic or other.

I have, as always, been a dreadful fest participant, failing miserably in the supporting and pimping, despite having several recs half-written for previous fics. But at least I managed to finish my story before it was due! It's gone up, and I warn you that it contains a whole lot of dystopian politics, is set in a version of the US, no-one tells anyone else they love them (well, I wrote it, so that's usually the case), and there is sod-all porn and only a bit of comedy.

Want to give it a go anyway? (Go on, you lot are brave!) You can find it here: And Save Me From Bloody Men, just 10,000 words, so, nice and easy!

And if you are shaking your head saying, 'Woman, I will put up with your political obsessions ONLY when you make them as comedic as Public Good', then hold off for tomorrow when I will be posting some apolitical comedy, but do me a favour and read about Oxfam over here. They are great, and you can buy goats for people all over the world instead of pieces of tat for those friends and family who are impossible to buy for.

A BIG KISS to bryoneybrynn  for the lovely goat, now I am off to work on some actual rec posts. Or read my new A.A. Gill book. Possibly both!

Right, that's it. I've had enough.

Not one of you bastards has ever appreciated the full depths of my tortured genius.

I am leaving HP fandom and devoting myself to writing Real Person Slash about Finnish Grand Prix drivers!

No longer will I have to deal with obsessing over whether it's Finnegan or Finnigan, EVERYONE is named Kimi, Mika or Heikki. And no one will ever tell me that it's illegal for cousins to marry again! Hurrah!

Have a lovely Wednesday!

Spending a lot of time at the moment working with a couple of my writers' groups, with the result that I am enormously behind on everything, especially comments. But I am internalising the need for more semicolons in my work and gently disabusing others of the idea that it is genteel to leave one's little finger up in the air when drinking tea. This coming week will see a fiendish bid to get up to date with comments, and, you will be shocked, a resumption of fic posting! Since there are no fewer than 4 partially-written birthday fics on my hard drive, not to mention Fathers, dodgy mpreg and Fragile to finish, I foresee an autumn and winter of much writing, if only the cool weather would come and stay!

I had a lovely day today with a friend who is over from England, her husband and her two small children. The kids were gorgeous, but I began the day with a faux pas, as I forgot I had met her husband, indeed, he was at the same university I started my first degree at. Happily, I think he failed to hear my 'Lovely to meet you!' or else ascribed it to the mild aphasia I sometimes have in speech (never allow a taxi to scramble your brains unless you like saying petticoat every time you mean apron ...)

Spent a little too long in the sun and have a pink nose and melty brain to show for it, but I was a responsible adult for the little ones at the play equipment, which was jolly good fun! Except for the bit where the toddler wanted to hang off the high bar and I could barely hold him up high enough for him to reach it (obviously I kept holding on while he was hanging). His older sister was very sympathetic when I pointed out they actually needed a taller adult and consoled me with the thought that at least I didn't look weird in the playground. She has a good head on her shoulders that girl!

Missed a party tonight due to being knackered, but worse things happen at sea! And now, off to finally catch up with some of the goodness at hp10k_showcase ! Then aloe on the nose and bed.

OH! and for you in Europe and the Americas, don't forget Earth Hour at 8.30 tonight. Have some candles and a romantic dinner ready, or else use a little bit of power and listen to some music or a radio play for an hour. Or, perhaps best of all, if your city is wholly dimmed, pop outside to watch the skies and see them in rare splendour!