February 24th, massive auction of Dr Who stuff.

Now, if someone could buy me Ace's costume, so I can put it in my living room and shamelessly fangirl it? Please? Pretty please?

Finished The Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh tales (in translation, I'm not that good - and apparently that one's a good translation). Blood, guts, oddness, and names I haven't a hope in hell of being able to pronounce - all good stuff.

When people start getting their knickers in a twist about violence in the media, I always end up thinking of tales like this. The family locked in an iron chamber which has fire stacked round it so they bake to death (though two escape by barging through the weakened white-hot iron) - that's something worthy of a Saw movie. In the same story men hide in sacks hung round a hall (pretending to be provisions), intending to leap out and surprise the people living there when asleep, but "Efynysien prodded the bag until he found the man's head, and he squeezed the head until he could feel his fingers sinking into the brain through the bone". All good family entertainment! It has to be, it's from the Good Old Days (tm).

The best response to the sort of cold snap that hasn't happened in 20 years and has covered almost the entire country in snow is of course to travel half way across the country for a couple of days holiday. Naturally. I've never seen that much snow in Yorkshire, despite having grown up there.

Ruins of St Mary's Abbey:


Minster from the Museum Gardens:


( More snowy historics )

Lookit! The gods of the Beeb have put some old school Who on Youtube, for nowt with +10 legality.

Snowy journey home, very slow because things kept freezing up!

Snowscape from train door while waiting for someone to go and hit the points with a big hammer:

( Snow is what you'd call the major theme here )

New camera for Christmas!

Icicles, which fell off around lunchtime as the temperature rose above freezing for the first time in a few days:



Carved eagle impersonating either Brian May or Charles II:

The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner

Caveats to this review: firstly, it takes evidence from Mesopotamian civilisations that I don't have much background knowledge on; secondly, it was published in 1986, so one suspects there's stuff arguing back at it, but I haven't read anything beyond this book.

The book offers an interesting thesis of women being party to the creation of patriarchy, linking it to creation of a class system (yeah, it's a bit Marxist). Women identify with the interests of class, and privileged women help to put in place (and benefit from) the hierarchical systems that then are used to take power from their female descendants. So while slaves, or conquered nations have a group identity that can be used versus the powerful, women identify with the patriarchal kin system - so you get things like women being part of violence towards a woman who had 'shamed' the family.

One bit to highlight is that in Middle Assyrian law infanticide was legal, abortion illegal; specific punishment was meted out to the woman who had been pregnant. The author suggests that this was because infanticide was a male decision, abortion a female one - yep, abortion control has always been about controlling women.

Random bits: an early Mesopotamian queen called Shagshag. Transvestite knife-throwers as part of the cult of Ishtar.

So - interesting, but I don't have much to contextualise it with to know whether her use of the evidence is sound or stretching.

From here.

Gas lights to sewer gas light to Romanesque sewage pumping station to stations for the dead.

Little secrets like these lurk under the skin of most towns and cities. Hidden Glasgow forums have some pretty awesome stuff as well - best threads thread is the place to start.

I've just watched Battlefield for the first time since I was seven. And it justifies every bit of childhood glee that I remember. Ace and Bambera kick ass. There are explosions and swordfighting.

Also: you know you're a sword geek when you go "oooh, that's a copy of the Battle Abbey sword" :)