Here We Go Again

After the tennis finals at Indian Wells, I drove up to my overnight hotel five minutes from the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. 'Up' is the relevant word here - it's only a 45 minute drive, but Indian Wells is at an elevation of 89 feet/27m above sea level. The northern entrance of Joshua Tree is around 3000 feet/915m. This was beneficial, because while the forecast for Indian Wells on the Monday was 104F/40C, at Joshua Tree it was 86F/30C. Far more pleasant!

One section of Joshua Tree is known for having dark skies good for seeing the Milky Way, and I'd had thoughts of going out there for the sunset then staying to see the stars. But by the time I'd bought sandwiches, filled up with petrol and checked into my hotel, it became obvious as I was driving that I wasn't going to make it there for sunset, so I turned and drove up a random dirt road towards the hills and waited for the sunset there instead.

( Joshua Tree late and early )

The photos from the journey back, when I was able to take the intended train all the way from Los Angeles to Seattle. And then I got to see some of what I'd missed, because where the replacement bus and train services had cut straight through the middle of California (necessary to make up time, with all the switching between buses and trains), the Coast Starlight lived up to its name and stuck to the strip between the ocean and the hills for half of California. If I could have stayed on my southbound train, I would have had views over the Pacific for hours on end, instead of views of endless flat farmland and commuter towns bordering I-5 😡

( The hills are alive )

I’ve been hearing things about Sense8 for years, nothing specific just, ‘Damn, that was good, wish it hadn’t been cancelled!’ And that last part actively put me off, because things that get cancelled so often end badly, or don't end at all. But I finally got around to watching it.

I was not expecting the most adorable gay couple ever and their beard-turned-live-in-yaoi-fangirl.

I was not expecting m/m/f polyamory.

I was not expecting great trans rep and Freema Agyeman being an utterly awesome lesbian.

I was definitely not expecting telepathic eight person orgies 👀😀

And on top of all that, it WAS good. The queer perspective of the Wachowskis combined with the story-telling power of J Michael Straczynski. I wonder what the show could have been if they’d been given the full five years for JMS to tell a story Babylon 5 style? As it is, it gets an ending, but you can tell how much the pace changes in the second half of season two especially, compared to the leisurely set-up and trickling out of information that came before.

There's some unfortunate copaganda, which I suspect would be different if the show was conceived now, but definitely worth it.

I made a day to hit the mountains again last week! It was a clear day at home, but the forecast said the mountains wouldn't be and that was true. Still nice to get out though.

( Lake 22 )

This time last year, I was in Iceland. And not quite a year later, I finally got around to doing the last of the editing on the video footage. (I was going to do it in December, so it was at least done the same year of the trip. But then a lovely Polish lady commented extensively on my fics on AO3 and got me writing again, so the video editing lost out 😁) And no, I did not edit out the sound when my brother was being annoying 🤣

https://youtu.be/PUBrkVwjSJ8

I recommend setting it to 1080. Stunning country, amazing trip.

I now have a completed first draft of the fic that I abandoned in 2009 😁

I'm getting back-logged again - time for a rapid-fire catch-up!

Slow Horses season 5 It's Slow Horses. That means it's good. If you haven't believed me by now and given it a go, you probably won't, I guess 🤪 The combination of spy action drama and dry comedy remains as solid as ever, and the revolving supporting cast around the core characters mean that interactions and relationships don't get stale. As always, they filmed two seasons back to back, meaning six is already in the can and coming later this year.


Person of Interest season 5 As I had predicted, I didn't find this quite as enjoyable as some of the others. I was glad to see I was wrong about Elias and he did resurface, but an ensemble cast like this thrives on the ensemble, and having Shaw separated from the rest for so long hurts it. Like the 'Fiona in jail' arc in season six of Burn Notice, you can't just rip one person out and give them their own plotline without it breaking up the vibe and making everything feel disjointed.

The ending made sense for the series and the characters - like Burn Notice, this isn't a setup where these people can keep doing this stuff forever and getting away with it, and some characters were more likely to be paying that price than others. It felt right.


Shogun I finally got around to watching this, a year late. It had been on the watch list all along, I just kept picking other things from the list instead. The critics liked it, but it didn't set the world on fire, and I'll go with that. It has a great cast, fabulous production values and beautiful cinematography and direction. It should have grabbed me more than it did. Five way politicking, manipulation and back-stabbing is exactly my bag, yet somehow it just didn't take off. I don't regret watching it, but I don't think I'd have missed out on much if I'd skipped it either.


The Witcher season 4 The one with the new Witcher. Cavill was prettier than Hemsworth, Hemsworth emotes more. Whether the latter is a good thing or not depends on your take on how Geralt should be, I guess. I never read the books or played the games, so I don't have too much of an opinion on that. But also the character plot of the season was how Geralt's becoming more open, as remarked upon by the people surrounding him, so it was obviously a deliberate choice. Geralt's and Yennefer's plots for the season were fine.

Ciri's arc for the season with the rats annoyed the shit out of me. Girl, what the fuck are you doing with these people? They're stupid and they're awful! They're lying to and manipulating you from the start, one of them tries to blackmail you into sex on day one, and then another one comes along to 'rescue' you and says, 'How about fucking me instead?' And you do! It just looks like more manipulation, a deliberate good cop-bad cop set up, and whether it actually was or not doesn't matter when you're hanging out with a rapist and a bunch of people who are all chill with hanging out with a rapist. And they're all chill with kidnapping children too. Not only are they awful people, they're actively bad at being awful and keep doing stupid shit that Ciri has to bail them out of. She should have ditched their arses and moved on, but somehow every time she discovers something else they've been keeping from her and lying to her about, she keeps on forgiving them. Ugh.

(Also, do not get me started on Ciri's attempt to disguise herself. You cut your hair from waist length to shoulder length? What is that supposed to do? You look exactly the same! Did the actor just refuse to get a buzz cut or something? Or did management decide they couldn't make the pretty girl couldn't less pretty? A buzz cut might have been effective, but apparently that was too much to ask.)


Pluribus Hell, yes! What happens when almost everyone in the world turns into an Invasion of the Body Snatchers pod person, and you're one of a handful of people scattered across the planet who remain human? Very different from Vince Gilligan's previous awesome series, but the same mix of high drama and wry humour.

This series lives or dies by Rhea Seehorn, and of course it lives - anyone who saw her as Kim in Better Call Saul knows exactly what she can do. There are a couple of episodes in there when she's acting almost entirely alone for the full fifty minutes, nobody to play off, and she nails it. (She's also in some scenes obviously having the time of her life as an actor, running the whole gamut of everything. And good for her, getting the chance to do that.)

It was fun to see the card game spit make an appearance - I hadn't thought of that in years! I loved the history lesson about nobody knows where it came from, but it went viral in the UK in the 80s - why, yes it did! They tried to ban it in my school because we were all spending all our breaks bruising one another's hands 🤪

Season two is all set up by this ending, and it's confirmed it's happening, and I'm going to be so here for it.

“God? Really?” Sands is instantly amused, as he always is with any mention of religion. "Take a look at your life, El. Hell, take a look at who you're shacked up with, then tell me you think God had anything to do with it, because I'm guessing that particular god doesn't like you very much."

"I know who I’m with,” El says, his hand gliding down Sands’ arm to rest over the bullet scar. “And I know if God had given me someone 'nice', someone good and innocent, I would have left them."

(It is still Sunday here, if only barely.)

I'd almost forgotten how cathartic writing some characters can be. Nobody unleashes the inner bitch quite like Sands 🤣

That person who went through my sprawling 230k epic a few weeks ago, commenting in detail on every part, made me go back and read the whole thing again myself. Twice. And we've been chatting back and forth a bit more, and I'd always intended there to be one more part to that story to finish it off, but I stalled on it a few thousand words in.

But now I'm all inspired again, and giddy and excited, and I'm back working on a WIP I abandoned in 2009. The best readers are absolute gold ❤️

(Though the timing could be more convenient. Since it's Christmas and I have stuff to do today, which will not be postponed regardless of the fact that I only slept for four hours last night because my head was alive with scenes and bitchy Sands dialogue.)

Anyway, Season's Greasons to all those who do this holiday, in whatever form 🎂