blamebrampton

I have a usage question, fingers crossed there are a couple of people ambling by who can answer it.

I know that the use of 'I could care less' for 'I couldn't care less' is regional in the US (it's confusing to the rest of us, but once you know it exists and isn't an ironic turning of the phrase, it's easily understood, so no wuckers (as about 11 Australians still say).)

HOWEVER, I see an enormous amount of 'That's such a cliché ending,' but I don't know whether that's US standard, like aluminum*, or US regional like could care less.

Help!


* I'd say it was all Noah Webster's fault, which it pretty much is, but Humphry Davy started the whole palaver. I read an hilarious blog about ten years ago with a British scientist ranting about the fact that the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry's ruling in favour of aluminium was broadly ignored in the US. 'Fine!' he wrote. 'In that case, Sulphur! SULPHUR! Phuck you all!'

And … we're back. And we seem to be at the New Year's Concert. Fair enough. I had been thinking last year fled abnormally swiftly. It's Beethoven's Ninth and flaming torches – erm, is that a Hanseatic League reference? A lit-up representation of beautiful Vienna for credits, and now CONCHITA! With a graphiccy thingy-whatsit of a mysterious glowing round object making its way across Austria, which really is staggeringly beautiful.

Did you know they changed walk signals to gay couples in Vienna for the contest? Nice.

And now the mysterious object is at the stadium and it's a disco ball. A lovely violinist comes on to celebrate Austria's previous Eurovision winner. Big cheer, bless! And THERE'S AN ORCHESTRA! YAY!!!

Back to Conchita, who started the revival of Bond themes. She rises up out of the floor, like a hot pink pantsuited Aphrodite. And it's the dance party remix of … no it's a whole other song. About Building Bridges. The hosts are back, all in black tonight, and Conchita's up on wires flying like a you know what above everyone, and the Vienna Boys' Choir with a few friends is on stage. And a rapper, who then magically disappears, which is easily the best thing that could have happened to him. A bit more singing and now it's the Parade of Singers With Flags again.

I'm going to come out early and say that I'm a big fan of Serbia, even if there is a man with a bun among her backup dancers.

And they call Australia! And even Guy Sebastian is all 'I have no idea what I am doing here.' I plan to mock him later, but I should say that he's actually pretty good and an OK bloke.

Oh god, the Australian commentators are singing. Someone has GOT to ban alcohol in their commentary box next year. They're not Terry Wogan, they're Baz and Doreen down the pub; top people, but geez she can't carry a tune and he'll try to put his hand on your arse when he's sunk a few.

Yet another Hello to Australia. How much did we pay them? Big Aussie flag up the back, Guy clearly has longer arm than most to get it up that high. There's heckling from the crowd, I hope it is saying 'Hurry up!'

Nice little video montage of people performing one action somewhere in the world, and having it finished in another: a chap in London pours out some tea, a chap in Spain holds up the cup and takes a sip, which gets a thumbs up. Yes, we are all in this together. Unless you need a bailout for your economy, in which case, you're on your own.

Did you know it's a green event? Those are recycled balls up on the ceiling. OOH! China is taking Eurovision this year. Well, that's the and of Aus being your favourite poor cousins. Voting explanations up: I confess, I slept through most of the live show, woke up in time to vote, and decided against it. To maintain the purity of my snark. And warmness of my feet.

( The songs and the results )

My life has been reduced to actively not murdering the ad department and wrestling with our prepress people as they all fail to understand the notion of deadlines. But I am taking out a couple of hours between now and when our guests arrive for the weekend to recap, because EUROVISION! Ignore all typos, it's more than my sanity is worth to read it over.

We open with the lovely Conchita and her beautiful winning song from last year, leading into a parade of contestants traipsing across the bridge to the stage, followed by what looks like a raid on the props and costumes from Amadeus. We love you, Vienna, you're so groovily wacky.

The three main hosts appear, all women, one dressed like a Greek goddess, one like a '90s power dresser and one like a Kardashian. They're all multilingual and fun, and the one in the Kardashian frock looks as though she's planning to murder her dresser, so they can stay.

Three minutes and we've already had our first French joke. Bless.

I did miss the chance to vote during the live broadcast, because I was sleeping. I may well miss it again tomorrow, and possibly even in the final. I really need to sleep, or ad reps will die at my tiny, bloodsoaked hands.
( The songs )

There is a very stormy storm hovering over Sydney this week. It blew in on Sunday night, picked up speed yesterday, and has spent today pounding the ever-living crap out of the city.

Now while I don't wish to cast aspersions on the storm itself (a few have been calling it Cyclone Shazza, but it doesn't meet the Australian criteria for a cyclone, which are all along the lines of Catastrophic and City Flattening), it hasn't actually been that bad here. It's been bad up in the Hunter Valley, where floods have ripped away houses and lives, which is a genuine tragedy. But down here where the population densities are much higher, most of the city is built in rational places, accepting that winds will blow, waters will rise, and there could well be the odd bushfire around the edges. So we've lost some cars, some roofs and some beachfront so far. It could be much worse.

So the only adventures have been getting to and from work (and school for those super-cute kids on the bus this afternoon) wihtout being soaked, blown away, or whacked by a falling tree. All it requires is adaptability and keeping an ear and eye out. And an acceptance that some of the garden will need significant work in the near future.

Unless you're one of 4000 unlucky people who are currently on a cruise ship, outside Sydney Heads. With the harbour closed to shipping. For probably another 24 hours minimum, maybe 48. And there are 800 kids in that lot, two thirds of which will be having The Time Of Their Lives, the remaining third of which will be vomiting like bastards. To put it in context, the ship is not in any real danger, aside from uncomfortable pitching and some breaking glass as things go flying, their power and lavatories are all functional (unlike that ship in the Caribbean the other year) and there is plenty of food and drink.

But as I watch another dahlia topple, through the glass doors, I am profoundly grateful to be here, in my watertight if somewhat wuthering house, not there.

I have been running around like a headless chicken for most of this year, and will not get a chance to rest for another month or two. This is probably going to be OK, I am ticking off a lot of things on the to-do lists and have A Plan for the psycho work months that are about to leap on me. But I am failing at fandom. Two stories begun, and then left. Oh well, there's a second half to the year!

Walking is interesting at the moment: Easter was spent traipsing up hill and down dale, and I have needed to have a feet-up day since then. But Mr B gave me a fitness tracker for my birthday, and so I feel obliged to walk at least 10,000 steps a day, and then there has been a lot of gardening to do since I got back from Easter camping … The result is that I have a new theme song, which goes 'Stiff, stiff, stiff, I am so very very stiff!' Naturally, Mr B thinks this is hilarious. I keep reminding him that this is knee, not penis-related.

Easter was mostly good fun. I had a moment of feeling like the worst person ever when I shouted at a kid who had done something dangerous, but to the kid's enormous credit, she accepted that she had done something dumb and listened to me going through the safety rules and then followed them. I was impressed. I like kids, they don't mind the fact that rules exist and they don't begrudge you trying to uphold them.

Over the coming two months, I am going to think on that child and compare her favourably to my ad department. It will hopefully stop me murdering anyone in the ad department. That and the fact I can't possibly catch any of the bastards if they try to outrun me.

There are only two sensible things to do. Tonight I begin my Terry Pratchett Reread with The Colour of Magic. Tomorrow, I repot my bromeliads.

Very possibly there could be a spot of Oggish drinking and singing about hedgehog nonsodomy in between …

Someone on my flist recently posted that their LJ had gone completely rogue and was displaying in a wholly unexpected and unhelpful way. They then fixed it, through persistance and brilliance.

It would have been awesome if I could have remembered who, alas, MY BRAIN IS NOT YET BACK since last Friday, it is instead off in wibbly wobbly land, able to concentrate on very little.

If it was you, and you wouldn't mind sharing your brilliance, could you please drop mific a line?

In tooth news, I still look and feel as though I have been kicked in the face by a goat but at least was up to doing the laundry today. Now if only I was up to calculus!

And in other fanfic news, some teacher who did not think things through has set students a project to go and leave critical reviews on fanfics without giving the writers a say, a heads-up or even a box of chocolates. Read about it here. Thank you, inamac, for raising the topic, and the fab insight you had into it.

In real-world news, the Australian government has spent the week trying to discredit the head of our Human Rights Commission because she has had the audacity to call for human rights for refugees. Treating refugees as though they're humans, what do we think we are? Italians?!

(PS Should any members of the Italian government who have done such a sterling job in rescuing and caring for refugees care to say something damning about the Australian government, you will have a lot of support here.)

ecosopher and lokifan, I missed your birthdays! I blame having wisdom teeth and a torus palatinus removed from my mouth on Friday, which has left me zonked by drugs and gagging on the palate stitches, boo!

I love you guys, and that's not the drugs talking. I hope that this year is utterly splendid for you both and filled with joy and good things.

And now to eat some custard and konk out again …

Part one

Part two

( Part three )


End note:
The title is from a Pink Floyd song that started playing in my head early in the writing of this and then wouldn't go away. There is a good chord chart for it here if you have a guitar or ukulele handy, and a mammoth stadium version of it by the band here if you don't.

So, last year, in spite of still being worked off my feet and not having finished unpacking and still feeling a bit poorly after Moving Death Plague, I thought it would be a good idea to sign up for not one, but two fests. Because I am an idiot.

I flaked on one. I've never flaked before: in the past I've pulled out of one, been late with many, but never actually flaked. The fic is actually 4500-words written and will go up some time this year when finished, dedicated to the awesome mod who was all 'Meh, you know, it's just a fic, it's not brain surgery, no-one's going to die.' Still deeply ashamed.

However, because I had tried to keep going to the end with that one, I was late starting the second, for hd_erised. Which was going to be fine: it was due mid-Novemberish, I had started it, I had an idea and an outline for most of it, I had a good opening scene, I would just write like the wind for two and a half weeks and it would be FINE.

Which is about when I broke my wrist … Sadly, this was not the worst thing to happen in November and December. There were deaths of people I cared for, there was a close relative who was very ill (I try to be kind to him even though I don't like him), and others who needed to be supported or at least listened to (especially Mum, who I love even though she's a fruitloop). I got sick again, and I didn't have time to be sick. Work was mammoth and then I helped others on days when their work was far more mammoth and vital.

And throughout it all, this fic kept being written. Partly because of the marvellous astardanced77, who, at very short notice, said, 'Of course I can beta that for you!' and then not only did so splendidly (never has the phrase all remaining mistakes are my own been truer), but also bullied me in a loving and wise way to ignore the fact that I felt like physical and emotional drek and just focus on the story.

Which was always going to be about the ways in which we heal, and which ended up being about me remembering that pain goes away, love and kindness stay.

The other thing that kept it going were weird coincidences. melusinahp had a great note on her LJ about Hanukkah, I had a notebook that contained a scene where Draco thought about converting to Judaism, because he thought a ritual of contemplation would be better for him than one of consumerism. VERY HARD not to say 'OH, HEY!'

I had Harry breaking over a dozen bones some months before the story began, there was I with a fresh one. I'd written a long list of potions I wanted Draco to be inventing, they became wish fulfillment items for me as I sat there holding my cast above my head and waiting for my arm to stop throbbing. I had Draco being eye-rolly about Wiccans (sorry, Wiccans, you're lovely and I am a terrible person), JKR was eye-rolly about Hogwarts Wiccans on Twitter (pretty sure she just meant 'well, obviously that's not how Hogwarts Magic works', which Mel again was posting about. Spooky!)

But none of that would have mattered for anything had it not been for the wonderful mods, capitu, gracerene and sassy_cissa, who were understanding, funny and kind throughout. Thank you!

In theory I was going to have another go at this story this year with two hands and some sleep under my belt and time to expand everything. In actuality, I am going to finish other things instead!

Title: On the Turning Away
Author: blamebrampton
Recipient: Squeeka, keeper_of_stars
Rating: PG
Word Count: 25,500-ish
Summary: It's one thing to be good at not making a besotted fool of yourself over a man when he's busy being the most famous wizard in the world and you're tucked away quietly in Wiltshire. It's quite another when you have to see him every morning.
Author's Notes: Dear Squeeka, your prompts were delightful and inspiring, I wish I could have incorporated them all. I hope you like the ones that made it in. An enormous thank you to astardanced77, who beta-ed under the most trying circumstances imagineable – all remaining problems are entirely my own. And great gratitude also to the mods, who were kind, supportive and understanding. No thanks at all to the fates, who conspired cruelly.
Disclaimer:All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.

( Part one )