botherd

Whenever I don't post on LJ for a while - and this is probably the longest I've ever gone; nearly two weeks! - I feel like I need to apologise/explain, but I don't know if people even notice this kind of thing? I've still been around, reading every day and commenting here and there, but I guess because I've been in a bit of a fannish slump I haven't felt the need to post. THANKS FOR BREAKING MY SPIRIT, SKINS. Anyway, these are some of the things I might have posted about over the past two weeks if I weren't so lazy:

- Work sent me on TWO conferences last week. One was in Manchester, and was totally boring and mostly irrelevant to my work and basically a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME, but the second one in Nottingham wasn't so bad. Although we might have spent, uh, forty minutes driving round the centre of Nottingham looking for the damn Hilton. Fuck you, one-way roads and teeny tiny road signs and GPS that kept cutting out! But I actually learnt something at that one, so yay for that, and then afterwards I got to meet up with my half-sister and niece and go to a super pretty café for cupcakes and bumbleberry juice. IDEK is bumbleberry is an actual thing or something they made up, but it was yummy.

- How good is this series of Doctor Who? Matt Smith is delightful as the Doctor and I'm already completely in love with Amy. It's basically my favourite thing ever when the companions get to save the day. ♥

- I signed up for femgenficathon, and... I'm not entirely sure why? I don't write gen! I've been finding it difficult to write anything lately! IDK, maybe it will inspire me to write this silly crossover idea I've got.

- On Tuesday I went down to London to meet up with lazy_daze and Zel and see Rufus Wainwright, and OMG, he was fantastic. It was just him and a piano, playing the new album interrupted for the first set and a bunch of older songs for the second set, and he sounded incredible. He messed up on the piano quite a bit, but it was kind of endearing, and he played so many songs I love. I can't believe I'd never seen him play Poses before! ♥

- Unfortunately, the day after I woke up feeling slightly weird, like I had the beginnings of a hangover even though I hadn't been drinking, and on the way home I just got worse and worse. Rushing to the train toilets in order to throw up and only just making it = not big on dignity. :(

- The leader debate last night was all kinds of boring, wasn't it? Still, well done, Mr Clegg; shame you can't win. I feel like I ought to be excited about this election because it's my first ever general election, but mostly I'm just super depressed that the Tories are almost definitely going to win.

- I'm going on holiday tomorrow! We're going down to Cornwall, so I feel kind of smug that our holiday plans haven't been thwarted by the giant volcanic ash cloud of DOOM.

I just heard that Kate McGarrigle died. I didn't know a whole lot of Kate's own music, I mainly just think of her as Rufus Wainwright's mother, but I love the whole Wainwright/McGarrigle clan and find myself really upset at this news.

I don't really know what to say, so instead have a song which sums up why I love this family so much:

Old Paint - Rufus, Martha, Loudon, Kate (live at the Club Soda, 1996)

- Apparently Rage Against the Machine are actually outselling Joe McElderry? Now, I'm all for ending the tyranny of the tedious X Factor Christmas number one, but a bunch of people buying a song with the refrain "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" en masse because of a Facebook campaign? OH THE IRONY. Also, newsflash: Simon Cowell still has more money than everyone who's bought 'Killing in the Name' put together. He doesn't care.

- (Just seen that Ollie Barbieri has been supporting the RATM campaign on Twitter. I ♥ him, but LOL.)

- My neighbours appear to only have their wifi on in the evening, which is strange and kind of annoying. Obvs it's better than nothing, but only having occasional internet that I can only access in one corner of my room is KILLING me.

- Who has two thumbs and no money to buy Christmas presents with tickets to see Rufus Wainwright in April? SO EXCITED. It's been entirely too long since I've seen him live. Also super excited for his new album out in Spring!

- I've managed to just about finish one of my Yuletide fics, which is a relief! \o/ It kind of sucks, but whatever, it's better than nothing. Now I just have to write my original Yuletide assignment and my skins_holiday fic, and then I can concentrate on apocabigbang. So much to do!

- I keep getting the urge to go and see this, which is stupid because, um, I don't know anything about/like opera. But it's Rufus, so I kind of want to see it anyway. Actually, I'm also selfishly pleased that his opera is finally done because now it means he can hurry up and write another album. :D I mean, it's been TWO YEARS since Release The Stars and I'm starving for more Rufus music; I think the last new song of his that I heard was Albatross a couple of months ago. (And, OMG, everyone should download that song right the fuck now; it's amazing.)

- You know when you read fic that's so amazing it just makes you want to throw your hands up and go, "WHY BOTHER?" Yeah. Stop being so talented, Skins fandom, you're making me hate myself!

- Randomly, the other day I decided that the BEST THING EVER would be Meg Prescott on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, but then I found out that Simon Amstell quit as the host. (What? The times, I am behind them.) And now I'm unreasonably sad that this is never going to happen, even though it WASN'T GOING TO IN THE FIRST PLACE, because OMG, it would have been comedy GOLD.