My Motley Meanderings

1. A hot mug of Assam tea and a chocolate HobNob.
2. Making it to London and back without major incident.
3. Eastercon preparations still chugging along nicely.
4. Finally getting over the cold I picked up before Christmas.
5. Old friends who stick by you no matter what.
6. New friends who surprise you with their thoughtfulness.
7. Smiles received in exchange for small courtesies.
8. Potential disasters averted.
9. The return of Torchwood on Wednesday.
10. Madness's new single, NW5, on sale from today.
11. Random lists of things that make you cheerful.
12. Women with red hair!

As seen on many other people's journals, here is a list of the places where I've spent at least one night away from home during 2007. I might have forgotten one or two.

( Read more... )

Here a few of the things that made me happy this year:

• Solving the spy game at Redemption with exalted_mugwump, alicamel, and various others.
• Acting in Blake's 7 Wobblevision at Contemplation (directed by steverogerson).
• Successfully organising I'm Sorry I Haven't a Robot at Contemplation (presented by asphodeline).
• Dancing with tlanti and others in the Ceilidh at ConFounding Tales!
• Realising I'd accidentally sprayed Fenchurch the wrong shade of blue but it actually looked nicer than the colour I'd intended to use.
• Arriving at the Stage Hotel in Leicester after Fenchurch's first long trip since I got her back on the road.
• Directing Torchwood Wobblevision, featuring dougs, ang_grrr, surliminal, tlanti, etc. at Year of the Teledu.
• Bacon butties at midnight on Orkney after having driven up from Land's End.
• Being on the winning team of Finding Uranus at Satellite 1.
• Seeing Henry V performed by the RSC in Stratford.
• Dancing at the Madness gig in Liverpool.
• The finale of season 3 of the new Battlestar Galactica.
• Walking along the seafront at Southend with hermi_nomi.
• Watching Stardust at the cinema.

This isn't a meme (or if it is, I just created it), but I'm interested to know: what made you happy this year?

I got this one from steverogerson.

( The questions are behind the cut... )

I think this meme originated over here. The idea is to give either two answers to each of these seven categories or seven answers to two of them:
* Things you learned in 2006.
* People you met in 2006.
* Things you don't want to take with you into 2007.
* Things you want to hold close as you pass into 2007.
* Things you're looking forward to in 2007.
* Things that were life-changing for you in 2006.
* Things you hope to accomplish by the end of 2007.

( My answers. )
I've got a quiet night in front of the telly planned after I post this - the parental units are heading off out soon to spend the night with my mum's cousin.

PS. Happy Hogswatch!

I'm not going to write about religion often because frankly I don't find it a particularly interesting subject, but I thought I should put something down here that clarifies my religious position a little. I consider myself an atheist, and by this I mean that I have no religious beliefs. I do not believe there is a god, nor do I believe there is not a god - I simply do not know. It seems very unlikely to me, but I can't prove there is no god, just as I cannot prove that the tooth fairy does not exist. Some people like to use the terms "strong atheism" and "weak atheism" to divide atheists into those who are convinced that there is no god and those who merely do not believe there is a god - by their definition I am in the latter group. People have tried to tell me that if I do not know whether there is a god or not I must be an agnostic, but I am not - the distinction is that an agnostic believes it is not possible to know whether or not there is a god, whereas as a sceptic and critical thinker I could be persuaded that there was a god if I were to see conclusive proof of His existence. Until I see such evidence I will remain an atheist. I once spent half an hour arguing with some Born Again Christian evangelists who came to my door (they even tried the "evolution is only a theory" argument on me), eventually telling them to go away and come back when they could demonstrate to me a scientific proof that their beliefs were correct. I never saw them again.

Having explained my own position, I would like to make it clear that I have no problem with other people having religious beliefs (and I include strong atheism in that) as long as they don't try to force their beliefs onto others or carry out evil in the name of their religion.

This latest personality test takes a while to fill in, but the results are more detailed than usual and seem pretty accurate too:

Considerate Idealist

Things done so far on Fenchurch, my recently acquired Morris Minor:

• Persuaded the back door to open and took all the spares out of the back. Discovered there are in fact two complete sets of wheels - ten in total - with a motley collection of ancient cross-plys on them. I'm going to invest in a full set of radials before I put it back on the road.
• Partially sorted through the boxes of spares and assorted junk. Some useful parts, like a new master cylinder and several new slave cylinders, some parts from other vehicles, loads of weird non-car-related crap, and some stuff I can't even identify but don't want to throw away in case it turns out to be important.
• Removed the steel rear crossmember panel, which is rotten along the bottom. It was bolted and nailed to the wooden frame underneath, which is reassuringly solid and non-rotten. I think this is the only panel that's going to need welding, and it'll be an easy job.
• Realised the car has no indicators. No trafficators either. It has an indicator stalk and a flasher relay, but no lights and no obvious big holes where an old set could have been removed. Bizarre. The previous owner obviously planned to remedy this as there are two pairs of brand new indicator lights among the spare parts that came with it.
• Went into town and bought a new battery and a can of Duckhams 20W50 engine oil. Ordered an oil filter for collection later in the day.
• Drained the petrol tank, to find that despite what the seller said about it being gunged up, the old petrol is clean (no rust-flakes or grit), and will probably be fine if I put it back in. Cleaned the petrol filter, which also had very little dirt in it.
• Discovered the radiator drain cock is stuck open, and it had been bodged with a bit of pipe to make it hold water long enough to show the engine running before I bought it, but it wouldn't have held any pressure. The top hose is knackered too, the radiator has at least one pinhole leak, and one of the galleries has previously been cut and soldered (a bodge-repair). Had a bit of fun removing it as one of the bolts had rusted in due to water leaking onto it - a job for Plus Gas and a bit of gentle persuasion of the Big Hammer variety. I'm going to simply buy a new radiator and hoses as they're not expensive.
• Went back into town to pick up the oil filter and buy some rust-killer, anti-rust primer, etc. I'm in two minds as to whether to paint the underside in black Smoothrite, like we did on the Land Rover chassis and axles, or under-body sealer. The trouble with sealer is it's sticky horrible messy stuff, but in theory it's supposed to give you better protection against stones because they just bounce off instead of potentially chipping the paint. I suspect I'm going to go with the Smoothrite because it worked fine on the Landy.

On the way back from town I just missed the bus. Annoyingly, this was entirely down to my own pessimism. I saw it in the distance and thought, I've 0% chance of getting to the bus stop before it does, so there's no point running and missing it anyway. It then stopped to let some people on, and took so long doing it that if I'd started to run when I first saw it, I would have had no problem catching it. Then I thought, the next one won't be along for another 20 minutes so I might as well walk home. Two minutes later, a second bus roared straight past me. Strike two for pessimism. About 2/3 of the way home, up a very long steep hill (actually the valley side), I got a bad stitch and it started raining, so I ended up waiting in a bus shelter for another bus to come along and take me the rest of the way up the hill.